Hopes fading of progress on community patent

The introduction of a European Community patent remains distant despite important legislation passing through the EU Parliament this week.

Though the European Parliament passed the community patent directive after months of debate, the Council of Ministers is unlikely to approve the proposal in May because of questions concerning jurisdiction and the use of language in proceedings.

"France has a problem with the language issue, but I think we can find a way through that," said a Council source. "Germany has a bigger problem because it wants to keep jurisdiction over patent cases and that's a big problem, so I don't expect we'll see too much progress in May."

Parliament's suggested changes could solve Germany's problem with jurisdiction, proposing that first instance jurisdiction would remain with national courts, which MEPs said were more experienced in deciding on IP matters.

The courts would be renamed Community Patent Courts and the court of appeal would become the European Chamber for Intellectual Property, to be established when the Nice Treaty enters into force.

But sources in the patent profession said Parliament's suggestion would make the community patent no simpler to use than the present system, because initial litigation would still take place in any one of 15 countries.

On the controversial question of which languages should be used in proceedings, Parliament decided the European patent should use the same five-language system as the community trade mark.

Under this system, applications can be submitted in any of the Community's languages, but the applicant must also nominate a second language for use in proceedings for opposition, revocation or invalidity.

The choice of second languages is limited to English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

The Parliament has also asked the Commission and the Council to keep a role for national offices in processing the community patent.

The Parliament proposes to maintain the role of patent offices in research and development, and allow them to advise on application procedures, as well as forwarding applications to the European Patent Office.

The Council will meet in May to decide the future of the directive.

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