United States Mission to the EU demands EU software patenting

"Examine appropriate means to grant patent protection for inventions involving computer programmes", this was a demand of the United States Mission to the EU.

• USEU: TRANSATLANTIC ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP: ACTION PLAN At the London EU-US Summit of 18 May 1998, Summit leaders adopted a joint statement on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership (TEP) identifying a series of elements for an initiative to intensify and extend multilateral and bilateral cooperation and common actions in the field of trade and investment.

• .. TARGET DATE: END OF 1999 3.4 INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (§ 10.e) Although the TRIPs Agreement already offers a strong basis for the protection of IPR, further improvement of the protection available to rightholders should be addressed in EU-US bilateral relations. The issues to be addressed involve both short-term and long-term objectives: (1) As a matter of priority, negotiations and discussions should aim at reaching concrete results as regards:
• Examine all aspects of patent rights in order to identify and possibly adopt measures to reduce costs of obtaining patent protection. This should also include sharing by patent offices of the results of patent searches and examinations. b. Resolve the voting right issue, allowing the U.S. to accede to the Madrid Protocol. c. Examine ways and possibly adopt measures to ensure that government agencies in the EC and the U.S. make use only of authorised software. Subsequently, encourage third countries to adopt similar measures. d. Work bilaterally on issues related to the two recent WIPO Treaties. e. Ensure, through co-operation in the appropriate fora, appropriate
  • protection of geographical indications and trademarks.
  (2) In addition, a series of mid to long-term objectives should be examined.
  • No timeframe for the achievement of concrete results can therefore be specified at this stage. These are:
  1. Examine the consequences of the use of patents without authorisation
     • of the right holder, including government use, and working requirements. Where there are concrete problems, identify possible solutions.

     b. Examine appropriate means to grant patent protection for inventions involving computer programmes. c. Examine ways to ensure appropriate protection of confidential data

     • submitted by pharmaceutical companies to support approval of new products. Address the issue also at multilateral level.
     d. Examine the consequences of the EC's requirement to use a single
     • trademark throughout the EC as a prerequisite for registration and marketing approval of pharmaceutical products. Where concrete problems arise in relation to co-marketing and co-licensing of products, identify possible solutions.
     e. Examine the consequences of the EC's regime on the exhaustion of
     • pharmaceutical patent rights and whether they are adequately taken into account in the EC's and national policies. Where there are concrete problems, identify possible solutions.
     f. Examine appropriate design protection in the field of textile and clothing. g. Examine ways to ensure appropriate protection of databases. h. Explore the issues raised by the possible introduction and varying
     • treatment of artists' resale rights in the EC and the U.S.
  2. Explore possibilities of enhancing the enforcement of intellectual
     • property rights, including related costs.
     k. Examine how best to support efforts aimed at reaching mutual use
     • of patent search results between EPO and USPTO.