After the European Parliament has decided, in early July 2012, to postpone its plenary vote on the unitary patent, and hence after that its committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) is about to to reconsider the case, AEF, a specialised French press agency, has realeased three news taking stock of the current situation. Courtesy of AEF, we translate here the second news, which recounts an interview of Gerald Sédrati-Dinet, adviser on patents for April, a French advocacy association devoted to promote and protect Free/Libre Software. You can also find an deciphering of the legislative process, and a revelation of a report by Parliament's legal services.

After the European Parliament has decided, in early July 2012, to postpone its plenary vote on the unitary patent, and hence after that its committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) is about to to reconsider the case, AEF, a specialised French press agency, has realeased three news taking stock of the current situation. Courtesy of AEF, we translate here the first news, which deciphers the legislative process. You can also find an interview of Gerald Sédrati-Dinet, adviser on patents for April, a French advocacy association devoted to promote and protect Free/Libre Software, and a revelation of a report by Parliament's legal services.

April offers to companies to publicly declare their opposition to software patents, by signing a resolution asking to the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament to amend the regulation on the unitary patent.

Paris, September 3rd, 2012. Press release.

In the next few days, the legal affairs (JURI) Committee of the European Parliament will discuss on the next actions regarding the project for a unitary patent. Behind what looks like a technical text lies a crucial issue: who decides on what is patentable and what is not.

As software patents are coming back in international news with the Apple/Samsung case, we need to ensure that such aberrations cannot happen in Europe. April calls for a general mobilisation to contact all MEPs, so that the European Parliament finally tackles the issue of the software patentability.

On July 10th 2012, the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament has discussed about the unitary patent and how to proceed forward with the project. Following the postponement of the vote considered in plenary session, the results of the discussions are a strong criticism of the questionable way, to say the least, used by Member States to impose their modifications, along with the decision to discuss again about an hypothetical regulation on the unitary patent in September. With these last moves, the debate on provisions of the text are reopened. April calls Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to improve the text and citizen to rally in order to guarantee that fundamental rights are respected, that a genuine European Union patent is set up, and that software patents are definitively prohibited1.

• 1. See the column by Michel Rocard and Daniel Cohn-Bendit in a position paper published in French Mediapart L'Union européenne sous la menace des brevets and translated in European Union under the threat of patents.

Paris/Strasbourg, 2012, July 3rd. Press release.

On Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th July 2012, the European parliament was due to debate and vote on the unitary patent. However, MEPs rebelled against the European Council's desire to substantially change the text at the last minute: they were being asked, in essence, to be a simple rubber-stamping assembly. On Monday, 2nd July 2012, they unanimously postponed the vote and sent the text back for reconsideration by the committees1.

• 1. For video snippets of the sitting: https://www.unitary-patent.eu/content/plenary-vote-postponed.

Monday July 2nd, 2012, the European Parliament has postponed the plenary vote of the regulation on the unitary patent, that was foreseen for Wednesday. This postponement comes from the European Council decision to delete articles 6-8 from the regulation, preventing any control from the CJEU. The text is now back in Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament. Members of JURI should take this opportunity to fix the core of the text, to remove legal uncertainties which are still included, and doing so, to guarantee the integration of the European patent system within th EU legal and institutional framework.

On Friday June 29th 2012, the European Council has reached an agreement between heads of State and government over a unitary patent and a flanking unified patent court. But, under the pressure of British government, such a deal was done at the expense of removing any overview from the Court of Justice of the European Union over patent law, through the deletion of provisions in the regulation on the unitary patent. But the Union law does not allow for such a move. Therefore the agreement reached by the European Council is doomed to be nullified.

We strongly encourage Members of the Parliament to adopt amendments 52 to 67, in particular amendments 52, 53 and 54, which bring a legal certainty to the regulation and fix the political issue of the governance of the European patent system, and amendment 57 which would clearly exclude software from patentability. In the event these amendments are not adopted, we recommend to reject the proposal.