Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-05-Speech-3-267"
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"en.20000705.8.3-267"2
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"Six questions have been put by three Members of your assembly. Perhaps I may deal with them one by one.
Once again, the two other possibilities will continue to exist, so there will continue to be a Polish National Patent and there will also continue to be a European Patent which may if the applicant wishes, include Poland. Let us hope that most European businesses and most European research experts will promote the shift from the European Patent to the Community Patent so that the competitiveness of the European Union is improved as much as possible.
Firstly, on the matter of thresholds, the only threshold I am aware of is a threshold of quality and we must continue to provide patents which satisfy definite criteria of quality. Earlier this afternoon I replied to a question by Mrs Kauppi where she asked why the European Patent Office did not satisfy itself with just one expert and the reason I gave is that we need the highest quality patents and therefore it is sometimes necessary to use more than one expert. I do not think we should adulterate the quality of the patents delivered by the European Patent Office and therefore we should maintain the threshold as it is.
The same Member of Parliament asked about jurisdiction. Once again, a Community patent needs a Community jurisdiction and it seems to us that this court which will consist of specialised judges but which of course forms part of the whole court system of the European Union would be best placed in Luxembourg, but that is purely a matter of the location of the court.
On competitiveness, may I say that is one of the prime considerations why we engaged in this whole exercise. Business and the research community want a single patent available at one go for the whole Community and one that is cheap. The average cost of European patents is three times the cost of an average Japanese patent and five times the cost of an average American patent. Obviously this is to the detriment of European competitiveness.
As far as the languages are concerned, and here I come to a question put by Mr De Clercq, if we followed the Luxembourg Convention of 1989, which meant that all patents had to be translated into 11 languages, the cost of that translation alone would be EUR 17,000 on average, whereas the system the Commission is now proposing will cost EUR 2,000. That is also the reason why the Luxembourg convention was never operative. It was concluded but it was not ratified in the Member States required and therefore it never became operative and that is because we were not ambitious enough either in the jurisdiction or in the costs.
Mr De Clercq says why can we not have five languages. The reason is that the construction of the Community patent is such that the European Patent Office grants a patent for the whole Community and therefore we will leave the whole process up to the granting of the patent as it is now. After that it becomes valid throughout the Community and then there is a court to sit on litigation, but up to the granting of the patent itself the European Patent Office will continue to work as it does now.
May I point out that the European Patent Office is not a Community agency. There is a European Patent Convention and 15 Member States have signed the Convention but a number of other states have also signed it so the Commission cannot tell the European Patent Office what its language arrangements should be. Therefore when Mr De Clercq says why could the European Patent Office not become an agency of the European Union my answer is that the European Union must sign up to the European Patent Convention and should negotiate that but it is no longer realistic to expect the European Patent Office to become a Union agency.
The penultimate point, raised by Mr De Clercq, was about the codecision procedure. That will remain as it normally is and therefore Parliament will play its normal role in considering the mandates and the aims of the Commission when these issues are decided in full this autumn.
Lastly, when enlargement takes place the Union will become bigger, obviously, and the Community patent will then apply to the countries that have acceded to the European Union. There is no other way of keeping and maintaining a Community patent."@en1
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