The three political groups have put together a motion criticizing plans for the European Patent Litigation Agreement and European Patent Court, which has been put forward by internal market and services commissioner Charlie McCreevy.
The EPLA is among the potential solutions to modernize the European patent system and has been part of the consultation on future patent policy that has been ongoing since January 2006. The EPLA would see the creation of a European Patent Court, which would have jurisdiction over the validity and infringement of European patents.
According to a motion put forward by three parliamentary groups – PES, Greens/EFA, and GUE/NGL – it would also be undemocratic, lead to higher patent costs, and potentially enable the patent of software.
If McCreevy were to succeed with his plans for the EPLA, he would hurt the EU institutions and Europe’s SMEs at the same time, said Austrian Green MEP, Eva Lichtenberger, in a statement. It’s high time for the Commission and for certain conservatives to stop this constant, anachronistic push for ever more patents.
In their motion the three groups maintained that only a community framework could create the conditions for democratic international patent law, maintaining that plans for a European Patent Judiciary Administrative Committee would place too much legislative power in the hands of unelected delegates.
The group also voiced concern over the potential for increased patent costs impacting smaller businesses and cast doubt over recent decisions made by the European Patent Office that it considered too broad.
The number of patent applications filed at the EPO per year has over last seven years increased by about 60%, which… is not attributable to a corresponding increase in innovative activity, the motion states, therefore giving cause for concern over an extension of the scope of patentable subject matter.
Italian MEP and GUE/NGL representative, Umberto Guidoni, was even more scathing in a statement. After the failure of the software patent directive, the EPO has come up with another proposal backed by McCreevy, and it’s even more undemocratic and dangerous than the previous one, he said.
EPLA is much more than software patents. Still, software patents are one of the key motivations behind it. The Parliament made it very clear last year that we largely disagree with the EPO’s granting practice in certain areas. That’s why we don’t want a new court that would be controlled basically by the same people as the EPO.
By software patent directive Guidoni was referring to the CII directive was designed to standardize technology patent laws across the European Union but divided technology vendors, business users, and politicians alike, and was eventually rejected by the European Parliament in July 2005 by 648 votes to 14 with 18 abstentions.
A European Parliament vote on the two motions is set for October 11 or 12, while McCreevy is expected to make his case to the European Parliament in a speech this week.
