• 9669/09: Enhancing the patent system in Europe (c) Request for an opinion by the European Court of Justice on the compatibility with the EC Treaty of the envisaged Agreement creating a Unified Patent Litigation System - Agreement in principle
• 9550/09: Preparation of the Competitiveness Council of 28 - 29 May 2009 Enhancing the patent system in Europe (c) Request for an opinion by the European Court of Justice on the compatibility with the EC Treaty of the envisaged Agreement creating a Unified Patent Litigation System - Agreement in principle
• 9076/09: Request for an opinion by the European Court of Justice on the compatibility with the EC Treaty of the envisaged Agreement creating a unified patent litigation system

The reason for this undertaking was by intention to learn some facts about the questions referred or soon to be referred to the ECJ. Of what kind of legal aspect might those concerns be, leading the EU Council to do this referral? Or, if they refuse to disclose anything substantial, why are they doing so?

Today I have received an Official Communication concerning my above-identified request, concluding:

Mr van Pottelsberghe recently has published a paper titled 'Lost property: The European patent system and why it doesn't work' (PDF). Using new and hard-hitting data, van Pottelsberghe paints a dark picture of today's patent landscape both in Europe and internationally. According to his paper, it is a tale of failed public cooperation at all levels and of a regime in danger of rampant patent inflation unless minds and resources are focused on tackling the root causes of the problem.

David Kappos

“I am pleased that the President has announced his intent nominate David J. Kappos to be the Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. [...]"

This is exactly what has been expected and awaited since weeks; see my earlier postings here, here, and there.

In my earlier posting I had reported that, on the occasion of the 2945^th session of the Council of the European Union - Competitiveness Configuration (Internal Market, Industry and Research) - held on May 28, 2009, and in accordance with a Presidency proposal, a decision was taken to allow for a re-examination by the European Court of Justice of the compatibility of the drafted agreement on a single court system for solving patent disputes. However, the EU Council did not publish any Documents from which the gist of the questions put before the ECJ could be derived.

On June 07, 2009, I electronically filed a formal request in accordance with Regulation 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission Documents to be allowed to have a number of Council Documents as listed below:

EFF, Public Knowledge, drop ACTA lawsuit - The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge have dropped their Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) lawsuit. The two organisations were demanding access to important documents about the secret intellectual property enforcement treaty. They say, the Obama administration’s decision to support 'Bush-era concealment policies' has forced them to abandon their case. Federal judges have very little discretion to overrule executive branch decisions to classify information on “national security” grounds, “and the Obama administration has recently informed the court that it intends to defend the classification claims originally made by the Bush Administration,” says the EFF.

Way Forward on IP Issues at the WTO Still Unclear - Last week’s WTO Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights saw very little, if any, progress towards resolving TRIPS issues in the context of the Doha negotiations.

OECD Report: “Creative Destruction,” Innovation Focus Needed In Economic Crisis - The document entitled Policy Responses to the Economic Crisis: Investing in Innovation for Long-Term Growth was prepared by Dominique Guellec and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent of the OECD Secretariat.

New timeliness standard for OHIM Service Charter - The OHIM Service Charter for the first quarter of this year has now been published with a new set of timeliness standards designed to ensure more equal treatment of files of the same type.

Interview with Pirate Party Leader: "These are Crucial Freedoms" - Mr Bruce Byfield talking to Mr Rickard Falkvinge, Head of Swedish Pirate Party. "All patents, at their base, are innovation inhibitors," he maintains. "First of all, we're part of the next generation civil liberties movement. This is a civil liberties movement. These are crucial freedoms and crucial rights that are being jeopardized by people wanting to close down the Net, and we want to safeguard those rights. We basically want the fundamental rights and freedoms to apply online as well as off-line. The second thing I want to emphasize is that we've grown only by people talking to one another. We've grown almost a quarter million votes, 50,000 members, 17,000 activists, by one person talking to another, one conversation at a time, one colleague, kin or class mate at a time over a three year period. This, if nothing else, shows that you can do that. You are not dependent on old media any more. If you have a strong message and it concerns people, then you can drive that yourself."

Digital Britain: The Final Report - The Digital Britain Report is the UK Government's strategic vision for ensuring that the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy. The report contains actions and recommendations to ensure first rate digital and communications infrastructure to promote and protect talent and innovation in our creative industries, to modernize TV and radio frameworks, and support local news, and it introduces policies to maximize the social and economic benefits from digital technologies.

Ambassador Kirk Announces Plan to Move Forward with the ACTA Negotiation - In keeping with President Obama's transparency goals, USTR will continue its efforts to ensure that the public is well-informed about the negotiations. In addition to the April 6 release of a detailed summary of issues under negotiation, USTR has established a dedicated ACTA page on the USTR website. Also, USTR will maintain our "open-door" policy toward all stakeholders, and will hold "town hall" meetings to engage with members of the public.

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) - Website of United States Trade Representative (USTR) - still lacking substantial disclosure of ACTA negotiation documents.

Google Trends on 'piratpartiet' (Swedish Pirate Party) and 'piratenpartei' (German Pirate Party) - soaring interest in related Google searches:

Source: Google Trends

]]> Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:44:00 +0200 http://www.ipjur.com/blog2/index.php?/archives/85-guid.html http://www.ipjur.com/blog2/index.php?/archives/85-Linkdump-2009-06-15.html http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ipjur/~3/ZsGdVm-UKWY/index.php EP http://www.ipjur.com/blog2/index.php?/archives/84-Who-Might-be-Next-EPO-President.html#comments http://www.ipjur.com/blog2/wfwcomment.php?cid=84 3 http://www.ipjur.com/blog2/rss.php?version=2.0&type=comments&cid=84 nospam@example.com (Axel H Horns)

Mr Jesper Kongstad

Dr. Roland Grossenbacher

In May this year I had reported that Ms Brimelow is not going to apply for a second term in Office as President of the European Patent Office beyond her first term ending in June 2010. Who will follow her in Office?

Previous Presidents of the European Patent Office have been:

1. Mr Johannes Bob van Benthem (November 01, 1977 - April 30, 1985, NL)
2. Mr Paul Brändli (May 01, 1985 - December 31, 1995, CH)
3. Mr Ingo Kober (January 01, 1996 - June 30, 2004, DE)
4. Mr Alain Pompidou (July 01, 2004 - June 30, 2007, FR)

Including Ms Brimelow (UK), each of the 'big three' of the EPC Member States (DE, UK, FR) has seen a citizen of their own serving at least half of a regular term as President of the EPO. The Netherlands played a special role during constitution of the EPO and got their President, too. In fact, Mr van Benthem led the Office during the crucial startup years. And Switzerland also had a citizen presiding over the EPO.

Copyright Holders Acknowledge Losing Battle For Public Consciousness At World Copyright Summit - Report by Ms Liza Porteus Viana for Intellectual Property Watch.

HADOPI: French anti-piracy drive ruled illegal - Report by Ms Peggy Hollinger for FT on France’s controversial attempt to crack down on internet pirates by unilaterally cutting off internet access which was dealt a severe blow after the country’s highest court ruled that the draconian legislation violated human rights.

Reuters: Most firms unaware of Web domain changes - Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year, according to a survey.

Cox is favourite to replace McCreevy in EU Commission - The former President of the European Parliament Pat Cox has emerged as the new favourite to replace Charlie McCreevy as EU Commissioner this autumn.

Concerning the situation in Germany I expect the German Piratenpartei to end up at approximately 1% of the votes. This would mean there will be no German Pirate MEPs in the next European Parliament as in Germany the quotum is at 5% of the votes. However, political parties gaining more than 0.5% of the votes are eligible for reimbursement of campaign costs by the state; they might get EUR 0.85 or so for every vote they have collected in Germany. Hence, at the end of the day the German Pirate Party might be entitled to cash in several hundred of thousands of Euros. This surely will boost their organisatorical strength in the coming months; currently they are preparing for the next German national general elections in September this year.