When finalised, the Community Patent promises to streamline the existing EU patent registration system.
At present, patents can either be granted through national patent offices, or by the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO grants Europe-wide patents on the basis of a single application, although to be enforceable in the individual Member States, the patent may still have to be translated into the language of the respective State.
Consequently, getting an EU-wide patent is far from cheap. The Commission has estimated the cost to be in the region of €50,000 five times more expensive than the cost of registering a patent in Japan or the US. It anticipates that a Community Patent will cost 25,000.
In March the Council of Ministers agreed upon 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. But there were several outstanding matters, which it was hoped would have been resolved at the Competitiveness Council meeting last week.
The most contentious of these was the question of the time period within which translations of the patent application had to be filed with the EPO. According to European news site Cordis, some Member States, such as Germany, the UK and France, preferred a two-year period, while others wanted the time limited to six months.
In the event, no agreement has been reached, although efforts are reportedly still being made to resolve the issue.