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A session of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg) is going on from December 08-11, 2009.

Reports are coming in that yesterday another round of voting to determine the next EPO President has failed. According to Article 11 (1) EPC, the President of the European Patent Office shall be appointed by the Administrative Council. According to Article 35 (2) EPC, a majority of three-quarters of the votes of the Contracting States represented and voting is required therefor. There appears to be no exception which might lead to the election of a new President, bypassing the 75% quorum rule.

And it looks as if none of the candiates of the present tableau has managed to reach this quorum.

Meanwhile it has come to be known that Mr Jesper Kongstad has withdrawn as candidate for EPO president.

According to my knowledge, Mr Roland Grossenbacher (Switzerland), Director of the Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum, and Mr Benoît Battistelli (France), Director General of the Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle, have been the frontrunners in the voting process but both failed to pass the quorum.

Now the Administrative council might re-open the application process for new candidates or retry to get a sufficient majority on the next session in 2010.

[UPDATE 2009-12-11] Ms Brimelow's term of Office extended by up to 6 months.

[UPDATE 2009-12-11] Serious dispute concerning transparency in today's session of EPOrg AC - IAM Blog

(Photo: (C) 2008 by ME°°'s photostream via Flickr under a CC-BY licence)

A bird in the hand ...

Last week we saw the EU Council finalising a number of conclusions on an enhanced patent system in Europe feeding hopes that after long decades of futile endeavour there might be, on some day in future, a happy end of this story. But - after having thought of that issue over the weekend, I am not overly optimistic.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I do not really understand why earlier this year on recommendation of the EU Commission the EU Council has switched from a solution for creating a EU Patent Court solely based on the EU treaties - a bird in the hand - to a mixed international agreement which needs ratification in each and every EU Member State plus involved non EU States which are EPC Contracting States - two birds in the bush. Perhaps the EU Governments should be warned by the woes of the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. This Agreement is intended to operate in accordance with the procedure foreseen by Article 300 EC involving the Community, its Member States and other Contracting States of the EPC. The participation of the Community in the agreement is notably required since it would cover areas for which the Community has exclusive competence to conclude agreements with third countries, such as those covered by the Enforcement Directive and the Brussels I Regulation.

Ms Lene ESPERSEN, Danish Minister of Economic and Business Affairs,Ms Sabine LEUTHESSER-SCHNARRENBERGER, German Minister of Justice

Today was the final day of the 2982^nd Competitiveness (Internal market, Industry and Research) EU Council meeting and, as expected, some important political signal was sent out.

In particular, the EU Council has agreed on a number of conclusions on the main features of the European and EU Patents Court. On the EU patent they should form part of the overall final agreement on a package of measures for an Enhanced Patent System in Europe comprising the creation of a European and EU Patents Court (EEUPC), an EU patent, including the separate regulation on certain special translation arrangements, an Enhanced Partnership between the European Patent Office and central industrial property offices of Member States and, to the extent necessary, amendments to the European Patent Convention (EPC).