The Community Patent is intended to make it cheaper and easier to protect new inventions in all EU Member States with a single procedure. It will thus remove a competitive handicap suffered by Europe's innovators and stimulate investment in research and development.
As well as cost issues (last year it was estimated to cost five times more to register an EU-wide patent than one in the US or Japan), enforcement issues are a problem under the current system. At present disputes on national patents or on European Patents granted by the European Patent Office effective in individual Member States, are decided by the courts of the respective Member States.
This means that bringing an action for infringement of a patent or contesting the validity of a patent may require bringing actions in a number of Member States, with all the difficulties and expense that entails. It is also possible that courts in different Member States may interpret patent law differently and reach incompatible verdicts.
To provide a less wasteful and costly system, the Community Patent Court is intended to operate according to a single set of procedural rules, with a uniform case law and with costs affordable for users and in particular for SMEs.
Thus, the jurisdiction regime proposed will ensure that disputes over Community Patent rights are judged with EU-wide effect by a single centralised and specialised court. This will provide legal certainty for the protection of inventions throughout the Union.
In March 2003 the Council of Ministers reached agreement on the main principles and features of the jurisdictional system for the Community Patent, the language regime, costs, the role of national patent offices and the distribution of fees. There were several matters that were supposed to have been resolved at a Competitiveness Council meeting in November, but they are still outstanding.
Nevertheless, the Commission yesterday presented proposals for two Council Decisions that would establish a Community Patent jurisdiction, under the aegis of the European Court of Justice, to allow the resolution of disputes within the future Community Patent system.
The first proposal presented by the Commission would confer on the Court of Justice formal jurisdiction concerning certain disputes over Community Patents, in particular those concerning alleged infringements of patents and challenges to the validity of patents.
The second proposal would establish the Community Patent Court, whose seven judges would be appointed by the Council of Ministers, to exercise the Court of Justice's jurisdiction on its behalf.
It also sets up a specialised chamber within the Court of First Instance to hear appeals against the Community Patent Court's judgements. In exceptional cases, a decision of the Court of First Instance could be subject to review by the Court of Justice.
Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said:
"To maximise the benefits of the Community Patent, we need a single Community Patent Court, under the ultimate jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, so that disputes are judged with EU-wide effect. I am confident the Council will adopt the necessary decisions quickly, as broad agreement in principle was already reached at the March Competitiveness Council."
He added:
"But of course, setting up the jurisdictional arrangements without finalising adoption of the Community Patent Regulation itself is about as useful as a new pair of skis in the desert. So above all I hope the Council will agree on the final points of detail on the Community Patent still at issue and adopt the Regulation. Europe's companies have been crying out for too long for access to pan-European patent protection at reasonable cost with minimum red-tape and maximum legal certainty."