This is just a brief notice concerning the envisaged Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection. As we all know, the past Polish EU Presidency was not successful in delivering a final compromise on one of the other main components of the EU patent package, the Agreement on the creation of a Unified Patent Court. At least the question of where to put the seat of the Central Division could not be answered, and other issues might be unresolved as well. The incoming Danish EU Presidency extending from January to July 2012 obviously is determined to carry on with that task.

Just now the linguistic secretariat of the EU Council has sent out Document CM 1068/12 conveying an invitation addressing the Jurists/Linguists Group of the Council, summoning Members thereof to meet on January 26, 2012, in order to finalize the text of the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection (PE-CONS 72/11 – 2011/0093 (COD)) from a legal and linguistic point of view.

In my view this is an indication that dice is cast with regard to the political issues surrounding the Regulation. We shall wait and see if the Danish Presidency also can surmount the obstacles still barring the partners of the enhanced cooperation from finding a political solution with regard to the UPC Agreement.

 
About The Author

Axel H. Horns

German & European Patent, Trade Mark & Design Attorney

One Response to Linguistic Secretariat Of The EU Council About To Finalise Regulation Implementing Enhanced Cooperation In Area Of Creation Of Unitary Patent Protection

  1. Gibus says:

    And please, do not forget that the European Parliament has not voted yet on this regulation. It is likely that Members of the European Parliament will be pushed to vote without any amendment for the compromise reached in informal trilogue between Parliament, Council and Commission. The rapporteurs ofr the European Parliament have already made such explicit pressures, with success, on Members of the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI).

    But for the sake of democracy, it would be a pity if the European Parliament was reduced to a “recording chamber” (sorry maybe inaccurate rouch translation of teh French “chambre d’enregistrement”) giving its rubber-stamp to a text which raises so many legal issues and which every stakeholder seems to be unsatisfied with (in our opinion because the EU gives a too great degree of autonomy to the EPO, whereas in the opinion of EPLAW for example, because the ECJ is too much involved).

    If the regulation is voted as is by the European Parliament (which by the way will also provide legal translations) and accepted by the Council, it is doomed to become an unused law.

    Can EU really afford in the current context to legislate in void?

    This was already stated in our last press release