Businesses urge unitary patent

Ministers are envisaged to approve the interim review of the 7th Research Framework Program, at the meeting of the research section of the Council. A lot is at stake: the EU is to spend over €53 billion on research. What aspects would you emphasise?

Ten proposals have been formulated from the debates so far, the most important being the simplification of application procedures and related administration. Another important factor is that researchers and scientific institutes of some member states, have been able to participate in the research framework program less successfully, at least compared to the economic weight of their respective countries. These are typically the new member states.

I think the Commission should examine the reasons of this phenomenon. Without anticipating the results, I would like to note that the real concern is not a reduced success rate for Central European researchers compared to their western colleagues. There is no significant difference considering the ratio of submitted and granted applications: success rate is around 20 percent, both here and there. The problem is the lack or limited availability of a researcher background to build on.

Launching enhanced cooperation for creating Community patent protection may be the greatest achievement during of the term of the Hungarian presidency so far. The relevant authorisation has just been submitted to the ministers for approval. Why is this decision so important?

The idea of a Community patent was first raised, almost fifty years ago; and the debate about the relevant statute has been going on for over 10 years, with minor interruptions. One of the reasons why Europe is lagging behind in the innovations race is the lack of patent protection, covering the whole of Europe. European inventors have to obtain patent protection for their inventions separately in each member state, with all the costs and administrative burden incurred by this procedure. It is a very complicated system that is difficult to handle legally as well. It was said for a reason, that the system is as good as a tax on innovation.

Over the recent years, every attempt at reaching an agreement has failed. Basically because of the language regime. Despite the multifarious efforts of the Belgian presidency, no consensus was reached. That prompted 12 member states to submit their application for enhanced cooperation in December. Intensive and respectable efforts of Hungarian diplomats working on this issue, managed to bring the number of countries that joined the initiative to 25 and in the meantime, the idea was supported also by the European Parliament.

Now the Council must grant authorisation to these countries to develop the details of the new regime of Community patents: the process of obtaining patent protection for the territory of every participating member state by a single notification. I sincerely hope that the Competitiveness Council will give the green light in this meeting. Considering the background of this issue, it is safe to say that this would be a huge stride forward. Remember that the lack of unified patent protection incurs a loss of 700 to 800 million euros annually, for the business sector.

Would this not put countries opting out from enhanced cooperation at a disadvantage?

I would like to emphasise those entrepreneurs in countries that do not participate in the enhanced cooperation with reference to linguistic discrimination, will also be able to apply for the new and unitary patent protection without any constraints. Moreover, enhanced cooperation is open: Italy and Spain can join it any time later on.

We understand their concerns regarding the threats to linguistic diversity, but we must clearly see that businesses urge the new regulation. At the time when it is difficult to imagine that either national governments or the EU could launch serious programs, to boost the economy. Every step towards cheaper or simpler ways of doing business should be appreciated.

If an innovative enterprise is able to register a legally more secure patent in a fast, simple and cheap manner; it will also be able to easily obtain funds for itself, and to raise venture capital faster. In other words, it will be considered more valuable by external investors and will have an easier task entering the innovation chain. Naturally, there are opposing parties as well, since the procedure will relieve the workload of the national patent offices, patent attorneys, and translators significantly; even though their work will not be made redundant.

This is precisely why it is important to enlarge the single market fully, by the proposals submitted by the Commission last autumn. A consultation with the affected social and economic partners about planned measures concerning the internal market took 4 months and was completed at the end of February. The Commission will report to the Council about the results. What does the presidency expect from the debate?

The plan contains 50 proposals, including quite a few that have been on the table for a long time. But many of them are new proposals, reflecting on the technological development of the recent period. The aim of the presidency is to ensure that in the meeting of the Competitiveness Council, at the end of May, we should be able to choose a manageable number of proposals, 10 or 12, on which we can reach a decision in the Council by the end of 2012.

It is our aim to have the ministers discussing how and according to what aspects we should choose these directions, so that the preparations for the specific proposals should continue in the working groups, based on these by the end of May. There are member states that would prefer topics that will strengthen competitiveness immediately and spectacularly, while others emphasise social and civil aspects should also be taken into account.

The Council will also review the status of implementation of the Services Directive. What does the presidency expect from this debate?

Services are a special and sensitive area. There are no big problems as long as we are talking about the free movement of goods, but in the case of services people move as well. Member states mutually assessed, last year,  the implementation of the Services Directive; the review of this assessment and eventual further steps will be on the agenda now. I believe that we will manage to reach a compromise on the applicable wording, acceptable for every party, concerning this very sensitive topic.