Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-30-Speech-4-036"
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"en.20000330.3.4-036"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I come before you here today to make a statement on European Patent No EP 69 53 51 which was granted by the European Patent Office to the University of Edinburgh on 8 December 1999. After the granting of this patent, a number of concerns have been raised, both here in Parliament and also by organisations such as Greenpeace, about the true scope of this patent.
I am sure that, like me, Members of this assembly, Mr President, will welcome this willingness on the part of the European Patent Office to respond to some of the concerns raised by this Parliament and as a direct result of the approach taken by the Commission. I am happy to make available to you, President, copies of both my letter to the European Patent Office and its reply to the Commission. Of course, I shall inform you, as soon as possible, about the conclusions which the legal service of the Commission will formulate having studied precisely the reply of the European Patent Office to the letter which I sent it recently
Let me therefore conclude by reiterating that the Commission, like everyone else, regrets that this patent has been granted in its present form. We have taken action which – based upon the full cooperation of the European Patent Office – will, I believe, bring about a speedy resolution of this unfortunate occurrence.
On behalf of the Commission, I should like to say that the Commission shares these concerns. It seems clear to everyone involved that this patent should not have been granted in the form it was. The European Patent Office has issued a press statement to that effect. I know that there have been some among you here today who believe that the European Patent Office has, at best, been economical with the truth or at worst has sought to seriously mislead the public. You have a joint motion before you today which includes such charges.
May I point out that the European Patent Office is not a Community body; its existence and its actions are derived from an international agreement to which all the Member States of the European Union and four other countries are a party, but not the Community itself.
Therefore, I cannot give you authoritative information on the actions of the European Patent Office in this particular case. However, given my experience of the European Patent Office, which I visited in Munich recently, I personally should be very surprised if this unfortunate occurrence was anything other than a mistake during the examination process.
Irrespective of the cause of the problem, it is clear, as I have mentioned just now, that the patent should not have been granted in its current form. Therefore the question is: what does the Commission intend to do about it? That is the reason why I am here today.
The motion before you calls on Parliament itself and the other institutions of the European Union formally to oppose this patent within the 9-month period during which an opposition is allowed under the rules governing the granting of European patents.
Some oppositions to this patent have already been filed. However, if the European Patent Office follows its usual rules for oppositions then this is unlikely to bring any changes to this patent before December 2000 and perhaps even later than that. Such a delay in correcting what is, in effect, an admitted error, is clearly undesirable. I have therefore written to the European Patent Office in Munich requesting that it should explore every possibility to bring about a speedier resolution of this issue.
I am pleased to say that the European Patent Office has agreed, given the particular nature of this case, to form a so-called opposition body immediately, an opposition body which will, shortly after having been constituted, issue a first communication indicating a preliminary opinion.
Now, the European Patent Office said that such a preliminary opinion will be without prejudice to the final ruling of the opposition division in this case. But the Office assures me that proceedings will speedily lead to conclusions, subject to respecting the rights of the parties to be heard."@en1
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