Patents and trade marks are the most well known industrial
property rights, but the category also includes protections for
industrial designs, geographical indications and plant variety
rights.
"What all these rights have in common is that they enable
holders to prevent unauthorised use of an intangible asset of
potential commercial value, whether this is an idea behind an
innovative product or process, or an indication to the consumer of
origin," said the Commission's communication.
The most radical part of the Commission's plan is the previously
announced desire to create a Europe wide patents system. Internal
Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy last year proposed uniting
elements of the European Patent Office, which operates outside of
EU government structures, and the Commission's own cross border
patent proposals.
"Europe requires strong industrial property rights to protect
its innovations and remain competitive in the global
knowledge-based economy," said the Communication adopted by the
Commission. "In the EU, protection at Community level exists for
most of the registered industrial property rights. However, pending
an agreement on the Community patent, businesses do not have this
possibility in patents…the Commission considers that progress in
this matter is vital and reaffirms its intention to seek agreement
as a question of priority on these proposals."
"Having now established momentum towards finding solutions on
patents, this Communication turns towards developing a horizontal
and integrated strategy across the spectrum of industrial property
rights," it said.
The Commission has announced that it will conduct research into
the quality of patents, trade marks and agricultural products and
conduct a feasibility study into the application of geographical
protection mechansisms to non-agricultural products.
The Commission said that its aim was to improve the protection
of industrial property rights, and therefore the quality of the
material that is protected.
"A high quality system of industrial property rights should
achieve the acknowledged objectives of encouraging innovation and
diffusion of new technology and knowledge," it said. "High quality
rights only offering rewards to inventions that meet the legal
requirements are essential to a well-functioning system, along with
user-friendly access of information on these rights to businesses
and society."
The Communication identifies that there is a possiblity that strong
industrial rights protection could fall foul of competition law,
but that such instances are likely to be rare.
"Only in exceptional circumstances may the "exercise" of a right
constitute an infringement of EC competition rules, in particular
if the company is dominant and its behaviour is likely to lead to
elimination of competition in a relevant market," it said.
The Commission also said that it was harder for smaller
companies to exploit any rights they had because of the high costs
of doing so. It said that this was "undesirable and highlights the
need for prompt policy actions".
The Commission said that it would investigate the best way to
ensure that small and medium sized companies participate in rights
protection, looking at subsidies for the first 10 patent
applications, lowering all costs for those companies, offering
targetted subsidies or decreasing taxation from income earned by
the rights.
