LIVE UPDATE: Delayed agreement on unified patent due to reservations on location of Central Division

The AmeriKat's eyes now studied on a Monday
evening of European patent debate

Good evening, from the AmeriKat! According to the latest Competitive Council’s press conference, which took place moments ago, an agreement on the substantive issues of the unitary patent protection and unified patent court have mostly been reached. However, two unnamed Member States have refused to agree to  the entire package over a dispute as to the location of the seat of the Central Court ("Really, is that the only issue?" asks the AmeriKat in disbelief, "I bet there are more issues of dispute except for that one..") The Council hopes to reach an agreement on the seat of the Central Court and to finalize the proposals over the next two days.  


In the press conference Chair of the Competitiveness Council, Mr.Waldemar Pawlak (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy for Poland) said this (again, the AmeriKat was transcribing live, so there may be some errors):

Polish Deputy Prime Minister
Waldermar Pawlak speaking this evening

"Ladies and gentleman, we have achieved an agreement regarding the substantive issues. The Polish Presidency presented a compromised position – a balanced position - which I believe has been accepted on substance. We discussed the fees, the language of the Court, and the transitional period as well as the Revision clause. We also have in the proposal the structure of the institution. So, basically almost everything has been accepted with one exception, however, which is the seat of the Central Court. On this issue, I believe, a compromise will still be possible and the Polish Presidency has reserved the Royal Castle in Warsaw for the initialing of the agreement. We have already an agreement with the Parliament regarding patent issues and as regards the issues of substance – everything pretty much has been agreed. What is left still to decide is the symbolic part of it. But I am hopeful that we can do it and that the Member States which, as of today as we said in the meeting, cannot accept the entire package complete with the decision on the seat of the court, well, we hope that these countries achieve or work out a solution that we shall be able to finalize the deal still under the Polish Presidency. 

Because as I say the substance has been agreed what is left still to do decide is the symbolic part of the agreement and I am hopeful we can do it still in the course of this year because that would be an important stimulus for the common market as it would create a single patent area for 500 million consumers. That is something that is very important in particular for small and medium enterprises because it would lower the price of the patents and therefore would raise the competitiveness of the EU. This would also be important in the context of the solutions that we have elaborated from small and medium enterprises who would be able to easier use the services of the courts in the case of patent disputes. But as I said two delegations at least were not able to fully approve the agreement or the compromised proposal that we presented. Basically what they could not agree on was the seat of the Central Court."

Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, Michel Barnier also stated 

Commissioner Barnier speaking during tonight's
press conference

"European businesses, research laboratories, research centers have been waiting for 20 years now to have a unified patent which would be at a competitive price compared to the same protection in the U.S. That shows what an important topic it is that we discussed today. It is also why we need to take a gradual approach. I said to the ministers today that we are almost at the finishing line now and it has been a very long race. As we need a few more days before we can cross the finishing line I would like to thank the Polish Vice Prime Minister, Mr. Plawlak, for the work he has done – the intense work – over the last few weeks with all of his team. Of course working on the achievements on the Belgian and Hungarian Presidency, so for a year now the presidencies have been working together. . .We have been working on this for a year and we have achieved some very important progress because the protection text has been agreed. But now we are working on the patent text and businesses of course need this text and we are really just fine tuning these measures now over the next few days so that on 22 December we are able to official sign this text and show what important headway has been made. 

Of course countries which still have reservations today – very large European countries with millions of business – I would find it very difficult that these two large countries won’t be able to support the measure because it is so important for the single market and they are of course the first ones to defend the single market for our businesses and the competitiveness of Europe so I am sure that they will make the final effort to cross the finishing line and the Vice Prime Minister and his team will be able to achieve this agreement. It will just take a few more days and the Commission will of course continue to support the Presidency to do that."

Again, we do not know the final form of the compromised agreement put forward by the Polish Presidency that was agreed by the Council.  If it is anything like what we believe to be the latest draft of the Proposed Regulation, this may not bode well.  One can only hope that over the next few days those two Member States, whoever they are, will stick to their guns in order to bide some more time for a rethink on some of the more dangerous provisions in the proposal.  

One casual observation from the AmeriKat:  We have obviously not seen any of the debates on these proposals.  Instead we can only go on what is said in these press conferences.  To her, there is a flavor of this whole process that reminds her of cooking for a dinner party.  Your expectant guests don't know what manner of horror and chaos is going on in the kitchen, but everytime you come out to living room you calmly and over-enthusiastically assure them that an amazing dinner will be ready very soon.  The Presidency and Commission lend themselves to that feeling during these press conferences - who knows what sort of chaos is occurring during these debates but the AmeriKat cannot help expect that despite their positive reassurances, the patent profession will be left picking over a cold, unappetizing dinner having lost its appetite 20 years ago.