Speech 1: What we need is a specialist patent jurisdiction

Charlie McCreevy (Europese Commissie): Protecting innovation in Europe. Conference on Industrial Property Rights, Straatsburg, 16 October 2008.
 
"We need to put an end to the fragmentation of the market in patents and reduce unnecessary costs and red tape. I strongly believe we can only do this by creating a Community patent for the Single Market.
 
What we also need is a specialist patent jurisdiction that will provide for trans-national or EU-wide decisions. With this, we can do away with cumbersome and costly litigation where the same patent is argued over in the national courts of our different Member States. This doesn't just cause headaches for Small and Medium size Enterprises, a recent multi-forum case involved the technology the European Central Bank uses to make our Euro banknotes! The German and Dutch courts upheld the patent owned by Document Security Systems, but the British and French tribunals revoked it – and we still don't know the results in other countries yet. So, we could say Europe's current patent litigation systems have put a cash crisis of another variety on the ECB's plate!
 
Lees de hele speech hier.