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Spanish fly in the ointment spoils EU patent dreams

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

Via a number of sources, including the IPKat's friend Stephanie Bodoni (Bloomberg) comes news that the European Union has [predictably, say some people] failed to find a compromise on a system to make it easier to obtain region-wide patent protection [click here for recent background information], to the great disappointment of  internal-market commissioner Michel Barnier.

Some folk say that the non-existence of an appropriate protection that's also acceptable in terms of costs puts Europe's businesses at a great disadvantage against the US, Japan and China -- but the Kat, without expressing a formal opinion at this point, would like to know precisely why this is so, since the European, US, Japanese and Chinese patent systems are level playing fields that operate the same way for patent applicants (and opponents) of all nationalities. At present the 27 EU nations currently share 23 official languages; numerous proposals and compromises have either failed to satisfy political demands or have risked increasing translation costs for businesses.  Spain is said to be the main culprit but this Kat feels sure that, if Spain had not gone to great lengths to fight for a more elastic language regime, one or two other countries would not have had the luxury of hiding behind their Iberian brethren and would have had to attract the opprobrium themselves.

Fly in the ointment here
Spanish fly here

Full post as published by IPKat on November 11, 2010 (boomark / email).