2012-10-22

Great support against the untiary patent court proposal

Just more than a year ago FFII.se replied to the Swedish justice department on a query about the proposal for a EU patent court (in Swedish), but we where quite lonely on the issue we had with that the court was not in the EU and beyond governing. Sure we had help from our network, but we where just the crowd fighting those self serving software patents against a collective of lawyers thinking of patents as their income. Now it seems we have company - and good company too!

Here is a nice round up by two high profile politicians of Europe:
https://www.unitary-patent.eu/content/european-union-under-threat-patents-column-d-cohn-bendit-and-m-rocard (Mr Rocard and Mr Cohn Bendit)

Add this fresh report on the proposal from Max Planck Institut and with a sharp tone:
http://www.ip.mpg.de/files/pdf2/MPI-IP_Twelve-Reasons_2012-10-17_final3.pdf

And now even more with quite a large group of professors and lawyers:
https://www.unitary-patent.eu/content/motion-project-european-patent-court-law-professors-and-lawyers

Many thanks to Gibus for his unrelenting research and reporting at http://www.unitary-patent.eu/
Gibus serves the platform that keeps us updated and ready to discuss issues that are quite complicated and yet crucial for innovation in Europe.


2012-10-19

Study suggest EU-patent rethink; EU pushes on.


Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law just reported what we already know about the Unitary-patent proposal as modified by the EU-Council. Its bad. The report dives into twelve problems and ends with a recommendation to rethink the whole package.

At the same time, Mr Michel Barnier, EU-Commissioner for internal markets, announced, as reported by europolitics, that the criticized proposal will be brought to conclusion "in the coming weeks". (18/10 2012)
Please save innovation from a self serving patent regime in Europe.
I would urge Mr. Barnier to rethink that strategy... perhaps regarding the problems reported:
I. The unitary patent package adds to complexity
2. Fragmentation in the rules applicable to the unitary patent
3. Fragmentation of jurisprudence.
4. Insufficient exceptions and limitations
5. Absence of countervailing rights
6. Risk of dysfunctional patent practices
7. Discriminatory effects.
8. Inherent ineffectiveness of the Unified Patent Court
9. Uncertain implications of the unitary effect.
10. Incorrect legal basis for the unitary patent.
11. Exclusion of compulsory licenses through EU law primacy
12. Persisting incompatibility of the Unified Patent Court with EU law