The Proposal for a Council Regulation on the Community Patent

On July 5 2000 the European Commission proposed the creation of a Community patent to give inventors the option of obtaining a single patent legally valid throughout the European Union. The Lisbon European Council cited the creation of a Community patent as an essential part of Europe's efforts to harness the results of research to new scientific and technological developments and so contribute to ensuring a competitive, knowledge-based economy in Europe. The Lisbon Summit recommended that the Community patent should be available by the end of 2001, including the utility model, so that Community-wide patent protection in the Union is as simple and inexpensive to obtain and as comprehensive in its scope as the protection granted by key competitors. Further to the Lisbon declaration, the Commission laid down a proposal for a Regulation on the Community patent on August 1 2000