Well, according to the calender, summer has passed already months ago. But on the European political stage politicians playing the (never-ending?) saga of the EU Patent (European Patent with Unitary Effect, to be more precise), the summer recess apparently has closed just today.

In our last posting dated July 10, 2012, we reported that the compromise reached June 29, 2012 on the European Council summit held in Brussels had not been received by the Committee of the European Parliament (JURI)  well. The point was that Prime Minister David Cameron, on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government in London, had pushed through his demand that some Articles 6 to 8 of the planned EU Regulation creating a European Patent with Unitary Effect are to be deleted from the final text. Those text portions comprised legal definitions of substantial patent law, and obviously pressed by a bunch of eurosceptic backbenchers in his own party there might have been some urgency to make the world believe that the unloved Court of Justice of the European Union could be kept at bay from mingling with patent matters by such kind of last-minute amendment.

However, JURI took this decision of the Heads of Government and/or Heads of State as sort of a scandal and refused to give consent. If the plenary of the European Parliament had followed, the Unitary Patent (once more) would have been dead on arrival.

Rumours are going around since weeks that the Cyprus EU Presidency is working hard behind the scenes to help overcoming this deadlock but no details were published. Last weekend, tweets emerged suggesting that JURI might be rushed into an extraordinary session just tonight, November 19, 2012, 19:00 hours, to vote on a proposal already finalised by COREPER.

I have not yet seen any official documents but on the net there a paper is circulating showing a new Article 5 as reported by Pinpact.com. Some British folks are still unhappy.

Stay tuned. More news will come up soon.

 
About The Author

Axel H. Horns

German & European Patent, Trade Mark & Design Attorney

2 Responses to Summer Break Is Over.

  1. [...] Yesterday I reported that after COREPER had approved some non-disclosed proposal to break the political deadlock concerning the pending Draft for a Regulation creating a European Patent with Unitary Effect, at 7pm JURI – the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament – was rushed into an extraordinary session dealing only with this topic. [...]

  2. [...] already reported (here and there), up to now the EU has not published the compromise proposal which was subject-matter of [...]