Chances for Community patent looking up, experts say

摘要

The chance that the European Union could finally come to agreement on the establishment of a unified patent system is rising. After the Portuguese EU Presidency pulled the contentious dossier out of deep freeze last year and Slovenia made headway with much vigour in the last months, experts now say with cautious optimism that the Union could find the basis for a compromise on the Community patent by the end of this year. The Slovenian Presidency has led discussions on the dossier at technical level through March and April, and is getting ready to present member states' national experts with a progress report next week. The state of play is to be discussed at the political level by the Competitiveness Council, on 29 and 30 May. "The working group has been going well, we have made great progress on patent jurisdiction," said Biserka Strel, the head of the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office, at the European Patent Forum in Ljubljana on 6 May. "The response has been positive, we are optimistic," she added. An official said that optimism is also rising among the experts at the European Commission.