The EU Commissioners for the internal market and for science and
research will discuss patent and copyright laws with EU ministers.
The basis of the discussions will be a Commission report which says
that patent and copyright laws are "bottlenecks" blocking the
progress of European entrepreneurs.
The Competitiveness Council of Ministers will hear that EU
countries have mostly climbed up the international rankings of
countries whose legal and infrastructural environments are
welcoming to business, but that there are still problems.
"The innovation gap between the EU and its key competitors, the
US and Japan, has narrowed," said a Commission statement. "However,
the Commission also recognises policy gaps and indicates areas
where further improvements both at European and at member states
level are necessary in view of the challenges ahead."
The Commission has produced a review of the EU's innovation
policy and put it in context with other nations' and regions'
policies. That review says that intellectual property laws in the
EU could better favour business.
"Despite improvements, the EU innovation system continues to
suffer from shortcomings that negatively influence the market
rewards and incentives for private investment in innovation which
as a consequence remains lower than that of our main competitors,"
it said. "The legal framework for the protection of intellectual
property remains incomplete, the venture capital market is
fragmented and the level of equity funding low."
The Commission has long campaigned for the creation of a single
EU patent but has in the past failed to win the support of the
European Parliament for the plan.
"An adequate legal framework to protect knowledge properly is a
precondition for an innovative society. In the area of Intellectual
Property Rights, among other things as a result of the failure to
introduce a Community patent, the EU is still not providing
favourable conditions for the development and diffusion of
innovation," the report said.
"The European patent system is costly and fragmented,
discouraging innovation compared to the US and Japan. The
difference in patenting costs in comparison to these countries is
significant and is not being reduced. It is high time to change
this situation," it said.
The report also identifies copyright law as a crucial factor in
fostering entrepreneurial behaviour. "Commission efforts on
copyright policy have been aiming to further develop the emerging
EU cross-border market for the dissemination of knowledge," the
Commission report said. "The development of new digital products,
services and business models, which thrive on openness, needs a
supportive and predictable legal framework."
The Commission said that EU structure and policy on innovation
was still fragmented and dissipated across many of the EU bodies
and countries, which made innovation difficult for
entrepreneurs.
"The EU has rightly identified innovation as a key driver for a
prosperous future," said the report. "However, making the EU a
vibrant space for innovation requires continuous attention and
calls for a better exploitation of the potential of the partnership
between the Union and its member states by taking more focussed and
better coordinated actions at all levels."
The Commission said that by spring of next year it would propose
a European Innovation Act to draw all these strands of innovation
policy together.
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