On Tuesday October 11st 2011, the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament held a hearing on the unitary patent regulation and the associated agreement on a unified patent court. Although people heard on this occasion, who were all closely tied to the “patent microcosm”, have had the opportunity to expose their views on the project, some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have pointed out the major issue at stake: the degree of autonomy the European Union (EU) wants to leave to the European Patent Office (EPO).

The war between Apple & Samsung provides us with the opportunity to show why substantive patent law with exclusion of software patents should be included in the regulation on the unitary patent.

The battles seen in the US over software patents could spread to the UK and the rest of Europe if the unitary patent is allowed to come into force.

This is a verbatim copy of Richard Stallman's orginal article published on guardian.co.uk on Monday 22 August 2011. We've helped the author writing this story.

Under close scrutiny, it appears that the legal basis of the regulation on the unitary patent is at best questionable. At worst, such doubts could very well mean that the regulation is simply illegal. In a situation where the enhanced cooperation procedure is already undergoing two appeals before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the future of the unitary patent cannot afford such a strong legal uncertainty. Hopefully, some amendments to the proposed regulation could help the unitary patent to partly overcome this hindrance.

The blog of the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW) is interesting in many respects. For example it was the only place were, during Summer 2010, the opinion of the Advocates General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the incompatibility of the proposed European Patent Court System with European Treaty Law was leaked. Recently, it was also the first place where the "non paper" of the Commission services about proposed solutions for a Unified Patent Litigation System was published. But here we want to focus on a series of posts on this blog, an exchange of views between two prominent members of EPLAW. Beside the opportunity to benefit from the take of of professional legal analysts about the opinion of ECJ on the incompatibility of the envisaged unified patent litigation system with European Union (EU) Treaties, reviewing this series of posts helps to understand what kind of patent system the "patent microcosm" hopes for, and what kind of alternative is the deepest fear of its members. Finally, now that Commission and Council have discussed some options about a unified patent litigation system, we can weight influence of the patent microcosm on EU institutions.

On Monday May 30th 2011, in a Council meeting, ministers and representatives of Member States have for the first time exchanged their views about the Commission proposals concerning the unitary patent, as well as about Commission non-paper concerning the jurisdiction. Although this meeting was quite boring, with each and every speaker stating more or less the same platitudes, some critics on major drawbacks have emerged from the delegations of France and Luxembourg. But the main achievement of this Council meeting, and the one which has hit the media's attention, was without any doubt the official declaration by Spain and Italy that both countries, which are the only Member States having refused to regulate under the enhanced cooperation regime, have filed an appeal before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) precisely against the Council's decision to launch the enhanced cooperation.

While the Commission's initial proposal for a regulation on the unitary patent gives a major role to the European Patent Office (EPO) in the granting and administration of this unitary patent, the governance of EPO has been highly criticized, included by academics, EPO staff, governmental studies, the European Parliament, or the Commission itself. This page collects evidences that EU should take advantage of the regulation on the unitary patent to address the problem of governance of the European patent system.