Thursday, August 26, 2010

EU Advocates General of European Court of Justice (ECJ, CURIA) Find Proposed Common Patent System Incompatible with EU Treaties

This is a bit late but the original opinion was in French and only released in English translation a few days ago.

The Council of the European Union requested an opinion from the Advocates General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ, CURIA) on the Compatibility of the Proposed European Patent Court System with EU Treaties. The Advocates General found the proposal incompatible (see the English version of the opinion here, translated from the French -- Request of the Council of the European Union for an Opinion on the compatibility of the proposed European Patent Court System with European Treaty Law, Court of Justice of the European Union, Opinion of the A-G, No. 1/09, 2 July 2010, translation provided by Pierre Véron, Véron & Associés), stating inter alia:

"“As it stands at present, the envisaged Agreement creating a unified patent litigation system is incompatible with the treaties.”".

Bravo. The European Union should not take a bad example from the United States and its balloon-expanding USPTO and self-serving special Federal Circuit Court for patents, but should rather see to it that its patent protections are reduced, with a corresponding decrease in the bureaucracies that serve the economy-sapping patent industry.

For more on the Advocates General opinion see: