Scientists will be those to thank the most the Cyprus EU Presidency, Vice President of the European Commission Maros Sefcovic stressed Tuesday.
Sefcovic who was speaking at the press conference of the EU General Affairs Council together with Cypriot Deputy Minister for European Affairs Andreas Mavroyiannis, said that there are many successes achieved by the Cyprus EU Presidency but placed emphasis on the agreement reached on the EU unitary patent package.
“I will highlight one of the successes, which took us the longest period, some even say 30 years, which is the patent. I hope that scientists would be those to thank the Cyprus EU Presidency the most”, he said.
The European Parliament voted Tuesday in favor of the unitary patent protection package. Following the successful endorsement of the package by the Competitiveness Council on December 10, the long road of establishing this important system is coming to an end.
The conclusion of the negotiations on Unitary Patent Package, which is a very complicated dossier with a long controversial history, has been a top priority of the Cyprus Presidency.
The unitary patent package is a result of enhanced cooperation between 25 Member States (Italy and Spain opted out of participating in it). The package comprises of the Unified Patent Protection Regulation, the Τranslations Regulation and the Unified Patent Court agreement.
The adoption of the unitary patent means that the cost of obtaining patent protection throughout the EU is expected to shrink by more than 80% (from around 30,000 euro to 5,000 euro) and will thus enable European patents to become available at a competitive price and will become more accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises.
It is considered that a unified patent system will be a cornerstone of our continuing efforts to stimulate economic growth and help Europe emerge from the current economic crisis.
A draft international agreement between Member States is expected to be concluded next February with the aim of setting up a single, specialized patent court which will have exclusive jurisdiction on disputes related to European patents, including those with unitary effect.
A patent law of uniform applicability will halt the occurrence of multiple court cases and will prevent the existence of contradictory court rulings concerning the same patent in different Member States.
