EU in for new patent fight 

Among the issues that the consultation paper addresses are: 

• The basic principles and features of the patent system, such as transparency and cost-effectiveness of the application procedure, as well as dispute resolution
• Possible additional features, besides "unitary, affordable and competitive patent and greater legal certainty" that stakeholders would expect from the Community patent
• Bringing the European Patent Litigation Agreement  and Community Legislation such as Council Regulation 44/2001  and the Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights  in line with each other  
• Approximation and mutual recognition of national patents 
• Importance of different elements of the patent system
  

The central issue of the costs incurred in obtaining a community patent, accounted for mainly by translation costs, is not directly addressed by the consultation.

Commissioner Charlie McCreevy  sees the community patent initiative as an important one: "Good intellectual property rules are essential: by stimulating innovation and leading to the successful development of new products, they help to generate growth and jobs. We want to maximise these benefits in Europe by making the single market for patents a reality. This is why I am asking businesses and individuals alike to give me their views on how we should move forward to achieve this. Meanwhile we will of course continue to strive for the Community Patent, which remains central to our policy."

Back on 4 March 2003, the then Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein  commented : "At the moment, patent protection in just eight European countries costs some 50,000 euro, around five times as much as in the US or Japan. The Community Patent, on the basis of the current compromise, would halve these costs to some 25,000 euro for 25 Member States rather than just eight - still more than the US or Japan but very much better than the current situation."

Anti-Software patent campaigner Florian Mueller says a clause in the current proposal stipulating that the European Patent Office (EPO) should "apply to the Community patent the case law which it has developed" would make it "extremely likely" for judges at the European Court of Justice or a new Community Patent Court "to follow the EPO's law-bending approach and declare US-style software patents legal in the EU." He added that it was "imperative for our movement to influence the new debate on the community patent on a timely basis, or else we would find it hard, if not impossible, to stop the avalanche".