EU - Enhanced cooperation in the area of unitary patent protection

"At the request of 12 Member States, the Commission proposed to launch enhanced cooperation in the area of unitary patent protection on 14 December 2010. Following the Commission's decision, another 13 Member States submitted their request to join the enhanced cooperation. The European Parliament gave its consent on 15 February and on 10 March 2011, the Competitiveness Council authorised the launch of enhanced cooperation with the participation of 25 Member States.

The implementation of the authorising Council decision requires the adoption of two regulations; one on the creation of unitary patent protection and a second on the applicable translation arrangements. On 13 April 2011, the Commission adopted the proposals for the implementing regulations."

Read the Commission proposals implementing enhanced cooperation (in English) here.

Read the Commission press release (in English) here.

Comments

[Steve Peers]

At the moment, the legislative proposals are not available via the link. But they are available, in English, on the French-language version of the DG Internal Market website....

main proposal -

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/20110413-proposal-enhanced-cooperation_en.pdf

translation proposal -

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/20110413-proposal-translation-arrangements_en.pdf

impact assessment -

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/20110413-impact-assessment_en.pdf

summary of impact assessment -

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/20110413-impact-assessment-summary_en.pdf