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As explained in my earlier posting, on June 07, 2009, I had electronically filed a formal request in accordance with Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission Documents to be allowed to have a number of Council Documents as listed below:

• 9669/09: Enhancing the patent system in Europe (c) Request for an opinion by the European Court of Justice on the compatibility with the EC Treaty of the envisaged Agreement creating a Unified Patent Litigation System - Agreement in principle
• 9550/09: Preparation of the Competitiveness Council of 28 - 29 May 2009 Enhancing the patent system in Europe (c) Request for an opinion by the European Court of Justice on the compatibility with the EC Treaty of the envisaged Agreement creating a Unified Patent Litigation System - Agreement in principle
• 9076/09: Request for an opinion by the European Court of Justice on the compatibility with the EC Treaty of the envisaged Agreement creating a unified patent litigation system

The reason for this undertaking was by intention to learn some facts about the questions referred or soon to be referred to the ECJ. Of what kind of legal aspect might those concerns be, leading the EU Council to do this referral? Or, if they refuse to disclose anything substantial, why are they doing so?

Today I have received an Official Communication concerning my above-identified request, concluding:

Mr Bruno van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie is a Senior Research Fellow at Bruegel and Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (SBS-EM), where he holds the Solvay S.A. Chair of Innovation. He joined Bruegel in December 2007. Mr Bruno van Pottelsberghe was Chief Economist at the European Patent Office from November 2005 to the end of 2007.

Mr van Pottelsberghe recently has published a paper titled 'Lost property: The European patent system and why it doesn't work' (PDF). Using new and hard-hitting data, van Pottelsberghe paints a dark picture of today's patent landscape both in Europe and internationally. According to his paper, it is a tale of failed public cooperation at all levels and of a regime in danger of rampant patent inflation unless minds and resources are focused on tackling the root causes of the problem.

On June 25, 2009, the General Secretariat of the Council has issued Document 11417/09, addressing the Working Party on Intellectual Property (Patents) and bearing the title 'Revised proposal for a Council Regulation on the Community patent'. It replaces previous Document 8588/09; see my earlier posting here. The Working Party has been invited to have an exchange of views on this Working document at its meeting on July 08, 2009.

David Kappos

“I am pleased that the President has announced his intent nominate David J. Kappos to be the Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. [...]"

This is exactly what has been expected and awaited since weeks; see my earlier postings here, here, and there.

In my earlier posting I had reported that, on the occasion of the 2945^th session of the Council of the European Union - Competitiveness Configuration (Internal Market, Industry and Research) - held on May 28, 2009, and in accordance with a Presidency proposal, a decision was taken to allow for a re-examination by the European Court of Justice of the compatibility of the drafted agreement on a single court system for solving patent disputes. However, the EU Council did not publish any Documents from which the gist of the questions put before the ECJ could be derived.

On June 07, 2009, I electronically filed a formal request in accordance with Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission Documents to be allowed to have a number of Council Documents as listed below:

Rio Tinto deal heralds huge changes - Mr Richard Susskind writes on a ground-breaking move of Rio Tinto, a leading international mining group, announcing today that it is outsourcing its legal work to India — triggering what is predicted to be an irreversible trend in the legal sector. The international mining group has concluded a deal with CPA Global, a leading outsourcing provider of legal services, and expects savings on its legal costs of up to 20 per cent.

EFF, Public Knowledge, drop ACTA lawsuit - The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have dropped their Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) lawsuit. The two organisations were demanding access to important documents about the secret intellectual property enforcement treaty. They say, the Obama administration’s decision to support 'Bush-era concealment policies' has forced them to abandon their case. Federal judges have very little discretion to overrule executive branch decisions to classify information on “national security” grounds, “and the Obama administration has recently informed the court that it intends to defend the classification claims originally made by the Bush Administration,” says the EFF.

Way Forward on IP Issues at the WTO Still Unclear - Last week’s WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights saw very little, if any, progress towards resolving TRIPS issues in the context of the Doha negotiations.

Albihns and Zacco announced today that that they have signed an agreement signifying that two of the leading IP firms in Europe will be one as of July 1st, 2009.

OECD Report: “Creative Destruction,” Innovation Focus Needed In Economic Crisis - The document entitled Policy Responses to the Economic Crisis: Investing in Innovation for Long-Term Growth was prepared by Dominique Guellec and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent of the OECD Secretariat.

New timeliness standard for OHIM Service Charter - The OHIM Service Charter for the first quarter of this year has now been published with a new set of timeliness standards designed to ensure more equal treatment of files of the same type.