Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-28-Speech-4-143"
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"en.20060928.24.4-143"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, there are not very many of us in this Chamber, which does not mean to say that we are not deliberating serious issues – far from it. I am going to address you on behalf of three political groups and of even more than that, just as my fellow Member and friend, Mr Lehne, also did.
This Parliament will be extremely sensitive to anything to do with the patentability of living matter, which is a significant problem for civilisation. Moreover, as regards software, we cannot ratify the EPLA, because the EPLA gives a professional group of judges a partly international, partly European function: that of making changes to the case law as they see fit, without any legislative control or sovereignty having a bearing on their actions.
This is what we do not accept: the idea that European sovereignty will play no part in defining the scope. Therefore, since the EPLA is a body of autonomous jurisdictions blocking and holding up the implementation of the European patent, we reject the EPLA and we advise you …
Commissioner, this debate is due to the initiative of the European Parliament and it was born out of our desire to respond positively to your consultation. We thank you for it and we congratulate you on it.
After the difficulties that we encountered concerning the patentability of software, we were pleased that the Commission – with you yourself acting as intermediary - is launching a procedure aimed at restarting discussions and preparatory work on the European patent.
Commissioner, we clashed swords; we disagreed on several points. I have just listened to you extremely carefully. I can say that I agree with virtually everything you just said. I totally agree, but there is one argument that you have not mentioned, and, because of your silence, that is the one that I am led to wonder about and that, while we are still without a solution, currently leaves those that I represent in a rather negative state of uncertainty.
Let me explain myself a little more. All of us in this Chamber, as Europeans, want the Community patent. I have that in common with my fellow Member and friend, Mr Lehne, who just spoke with his customary eloquence.
We all know that this patent has come up against enormous difficulties and that it is at a standstill. The main reason for this standstill is language-related. In reality, the four factors causing this standstill are the language problem, the cost problem, the problem of the legal consistency of the judicature and the sovereignty problem - the one about which you have not spoken.
I truly believe that the real means of breaking the political, cultural and intellectual deadlock at the Council regarding the European patent is mainly connected with solving the language problem. Unlike my fellow Member, Mr Lehne, I am not just a European Member who is in favour of Europe; I am also French. Nobody is perfect, you will forgive me for that. I should like to state in this House that I believe that the ratification of the London agreement – something that my country has not yet officially endorsed, although I advise it to do so – would be an opportunity for us all to overcome our linguistic arrogance and the hostility that it creates and to learn to live together, in the knowledge that one language dominates the others worldwide. We may not like it, but that is how things are; it is convenient. That is what would potentially break the deadlock on the start of plans for a Community patent. We would therefore agree to the resolution resulting from these debates saying so.
The second problem is one of cost; I will hardly touch on it, except to say that three-quarters of the cost factor are language-related – that is the problem that I am going to address – and that the remaining quarter is modest, that the EPLA probably needs to be improved and that it is outrageous to think that we might see the ratification of an agreement that many experts say would increase costs. We do not need that.
The only problem about which you have not spoken is that of knowing which legislative sovereignty will define and develop over time the field of what is patentable and what is unpatentable."@en1
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