EurActiv.com | 09 Dec 2008
The lack of a Europe-wide Community patent poses “incredible challenges” for small businesses and undermines the EU’s goal of becoming the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, according to a new study. The existing intellectual protection (IP) system, under which companies have to file a patent in every EU member state, is “a telling example” of the Union’s fractured regulatory framework, argues the study presented at last week’s IP Summit in Brussels. Businesses had invested high hopes in the French EU Presidency’s ability to broker an EU-wide agreement on a Community patent , proposed by the European Commission at the end of 2003. But differences over sensitive translation arrangements have proven insumountable for the time being (EurActiv 02/12/08). Under the current system, filing a patent in Europe can take twice as long (44 months) than in the US and Japan, while the cost (of a European patent) is almost five times higher than in the US (€10,330) and three times greater than in Japan (€16,450), the study shows. To bypass the EU regulatory framework, many innovative companies and especially SMEs end up “skipping” the European market by applying for a patent in the US, Jonathan Zuck of the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) told EurActiv.
Tags: ACT Quote, Entrepreneur-Friendly Regulation, Europe, Innovation and IP
