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Thursday, February 03, 2005

AIPPI publishes Report of Mr. Dariusz Szleper on Pan-European IP Summit.

AIPPI has published

a very interesting report authored by Mr. Dariusz Szleper on the Pan-European IP summit held on December 2-3, 2004 in Brussels:

"[...] The second part of the meeting on Thursday morning was devoted to the question of the evaluation of IP rights. The discussion related to the problem of enforcement of the patent rights in Europe and specifically to the anticipation concerning the attitude of the companies in the possible adoption of the Community patent. One of the speakers, Mr Ian HARVEY, underlined the fact that, due to the legal uncertainty which will be prevail long after the introduction of the new system, the Community patent will not be adopted in practice by the companies before 30 to 40 years. This opinion did not raise any particular opposition from the other members of the panel and from the attendants. - The next part of the morning meeting was devoted to patent management strategies inside Europe. The organiser of the meeting had managed to get the participation of representatives from several major world companies, such as GE, IBM, BAYER, PHILIPS and AIR LIQUIDE. The common opinion of all participants was that the current European system is, as long as it concerns the prosecution of the patents, very satisfying. And no speaker was strongly in favour of the Community patent. However, every speaker has strongly recommended the modification of the litigation system in Europe, underlying his preference to the EPLA Agreement. It seems that the industry 'BLUE CHIPS' are strongly in favour of EPLA and are not specifically keen to see the adoption of the Community patent at least under its current form (due to the translation solution as proposed by the Commission). [...]

The end of the morning meeting was devoted to the speech of President of EPO, Mr Alain POMPIDOU. He strongly stressed the will of EPO to achieve the EPLA Agreement and the need to resolve the problem of the translation of the European patents. He even suggested that one solution may be to obtain the ratification by the European Union of the London Protocol, which would allow the languages of the Community patent to be submitted only to the rules of the London Protocol. He also emphasised the need to devote a sufficient national effort to research and development and promised to act on various political levels in order to obtain the agreements of the whole European society to improve the current patent system in Europe. His speech was highly appreciated by the audience. [...]"

So, there seems not to be very much sympathy for the EU Commission's proposals concerning the EU Community Patent and, in particular, for the related

Proposal for a Council Decision conferring jurisdiction on the Court of Justice in disputes relating to the Community patent. The

EPLA seems to be much better off

than expected.

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