Just4Business reports:

“Europe’s 500“, which is an association of those European companies with the biggest growth, calls on the EU Commission and the EU member states to introduce a simplified and centralized European patent application procedure. Currently inventors have to pass through 27 different patenting procedures and have to fill in blanks in many languages according to EU member state so that applying for a patent may cost up to 150.000 Euros.

And when we take a look at Europe 500's sponsors page, who do we find at the top?

Here is the first question to the Commission:

Parliamentary questions
15 January 2008
E-6650/07
WRITTEN QUESTION by Marco Cappato (ALDE) to the Commission

Subject: Patent quality debate

The ‘Putting knowledge into practice’ report (INI/2006/2274) adopted by Parliament in May 2007 ‘calls on the Commission and the Member States to propose, in the context of the new Community patent, a procedure for eliminating trivial patents and sleeping patents’.

1. Is the Commission aware of any criteria and instruments to measure patent quality beyond the general requirements regarding ‘inventive step’ and ‘novelty’?

2. What steps is the Commission attempting to take in order satisfy the request for patent quality promotion?

Here is the answer from the Commission (available in proprietary Microsoft Word format):

E-6650/07EN
Answer given by Mr McCreevy
on behalf of the Commission
(18.2.2008)

The Commission believes that high quality patent rights that fulfil the legal requirements are an essential element of a well-functioning patent system. The notion of patent quality can be considered from a number of different perspectives covering individual granted patent rights and also
the objective of the system as a whole to encourage innovation. This makes quality difficult to measure. However, in the replies to the 2006 Commission's consultation on future patent policy in Europe, respondents stressed the importance of rigorous examination, prior art search and strict application of patentability criteria to ensure high quality patents[1].

The Commission addressed patent quality in the Communication "Enhancing the patent system in Europe"[2] and will further develop the issue in the forthcoming Communication on industrial property rights strategy which is expected in 2008.

[1] Further information on the Commission's patent consultation can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/patent/consultation_en.htm
[2] COM(2007)165 final

Similar question to the Council:

Parliamentary questions
15 January 2008
E-6649/07
WRITTEN QUESTION by Marco Cappato (ALDE) to the Council

Subject: Patent quality debate

The ‘Putting knowledge into practice’ report (INI/2006/2274) adopted by Parliament in May 2007 ‘calls on the Commission and the Member States to propose, in the context of the new Community patent, a procedure for eliminating trivial patents and sleeping patents’. And a resolution on European future patent policy of 12 October 2006 (P6_TA(2006)0416) sets a clear agenda for upcoming talks about a patent judiciary: ‘that the proposed text [for a European Patent Court] needs significant improvements, which address concerns about democratic control, judicial independence and litigation costs,’ and demands ‘that all legislative proposals should be accompanied by an in-depth impact analysis related to patent quality, governance of the patent system, judicial independence and litigation costs.’

1. Is the Council aware of any criteria and instruments to measure patent quality beyond the general dogmatic requirements regarding inventive step and novelty?

2. What steps is the Council attempting to take in order to address the demands of Parliament in the current discussion on an EU‑EPLA and a Community patent?

Answer from the answer from the Council (available in proprietary Microsoft Word format):

E-6649/07
Reply
(18 February 2008)

1. The Council fully shares the European Parliament's wish for a high-quality Community patent system. Work is still going on in this field within the Council's preparatory bodies, and the Council has not yet finalised its thinking as to what criteria and instruments would be appropriate for such quality measurement. In this context, the Council wishes to remind the Honourable Member of the Council's commitment to re-consult the European Parliament once a text concerning the Community patent has reached a sufficient degree of maturity within the Council.

2. The Council assures the Honourable Member that, in its discussions regarding the establishment of an EU patent system, it has always taken and will continue to take duly into account the views expressed by the European Parliament, as set out in particular in the 2006 resolution and the 2007 report referred to by the Honourable Member in his written question.

The National Patent Offices who are populating the Working Group on Patents of the Council have really few things to say about patent quality.

The confusing case of software patents in the UK gets more confusing

[…]

Earlier this week, the Slovenian Economy Minister (remember, Slovenia now holds the presidency of the EU) made a speech to the European Parliament in which he spoke of the emphasis his country was placing on finding a way to introduce a single European patent jurisdiction; so building on the progress made during the previous Portuguese presidency. The current situation shows why such talks are necessary – a central European patent court will help bring the certainty that, in a number of areas such as software and biotechnology, we currently do not have. Maybe such a court will be very restrictive in its view of patent protection for computer programs, but that surely has to be better than the mess we have at the moment. At least everyone will then now where they stand.

Joff Wild, IAM Magazine | 26 Jan 2008

Imagine a freaky judge at a central patent court adopting the same decision as the english judge Kitchin has made recently, and you get software patents validated Europe wide.

European Patent Forum and European Inventor of the Year 2008

On 6 and 7 May 2008, the European Patent Forum and the European Inventor of the Year will take place in Ljubljana. The event will be co-organised by the European Patent Office, the government of Slovenia, the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office and the European Commission. Slovenia will hold the EU Council Presidency in the first half of 2008.

Please take note of this date.

European Patent Forum
European Inventor of the Year
Grand Hotel Union, Ljubljana

The programme of events will be available at the start of 2008.

And of course, the EPO decides the agenda of the conference.

The consultation attracted about 2500 responses from stakeholders, many of whom are SMEs. It left no doubt as to the urgent need for action to provide a simple, cost-effective and high-quality patent system.

You will find the same rhetoric in the Commission's documents of last week:

The difficulties in making progress on patents and especially on the creation of a Community patent led the Commission to launch, in 2006, a broad consultation of all interested parties on the future patent system. The results leave no doubt on the urgent need for action to provide a simple, cost-effective and high-quality patent system in Europe.

The Communication is intended to draw operational conclusions from the stakeholder consultation and to allow the Council to launch deliberations on patent reforms, in particular on the Community patent and jurisdictional arrangements. It addresses various supporting measures for an improved patent system, such as patent quality, knowledge transfer and enforcement issues. Ministers will discuss the progress report on the Communication.

Apparently, the Commission did not received the "Worst Privilege Access 2006" award yet in its postal box:

DG Internal Market wins award for "worst privileged access"

The lobby-scrutiners group also presented a second award, that for the “worst priviledged access.” This went to the Directorate General Internal Market of the European Commission for its role in EU plans to create a single European patent system.

“This powerful European Commission department manipulated its stakeholder consultation process to legitimise its own controversial proposal for a single European patent system by marginalising critics from a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises,” the group said.

The Commission statement about "many of whom are SMEs" is coming from the difficulty for the Commission to have enough SMEs in the results before the deadline of 12 April 2006, forcing them to hunt for SMEs to get useful results:

Brussels, 10 July 2006. The Commission made an undercover move to get more "useful" answers following the 12 April closing date of its Patent Policy consultation. It sought out small firms across Europe who had used the patent system. It then provided these firms with new documentation and specialist assistance to help them write individual answers. None of the firms answering the online consultation got this help. But when the software firms in this new group came to the same conclusions as the FFII, the Commission concluded that these firms were "lacking knowledge about the patent system".

Here is also what the Commission have answered to another parliamentary question of Eva Lichtenberger MEP (in french only, the answer has not been translated):

À cet égard, la consultation menée par la Direction générale Marché intérieur et services (DG Markt) sur la future politique des brevets en Europe n'est en aucun cas distincte de celle menée par le biais du "SME Panel".

Which gives in english:

To this regard, the consultation lead by General Directorate Internal Market and Services (DG Markt) on the future of patent policy in Europe is in any case distinct to the one lead by the mean of the "SME Panel".

What does the Commission do with the following documents (Community patent - the current proposal and Documentation about the EPLA, or Documentation about the EPO) which were not distributed during the public consultation?

Where are the contributions to the public consultation available online?

The best quote is perhaps from CAFC judge Randall Rader, who says:

The experience of the CAFC is a very positive one, and it’s being imitated everywhere in the world, including Japan, China and Europe. I’m now selling it back to you. Our success experience should be a source of inspiration for the EPLA court.

This is the same CAFC that the Supreme Court of the US slapped down for granting trivial patents. From the point of view of the patent industry, CAFC was indeed a fantastic success. And EPLA would be even better… no SCOTUS to slap down an EPLA court run by the EPO.