CIPIL Seminar: 'The New European Patent Environment: an Opportunity or a Failure?'

Speaker: Manuel Desantes (University of Alicante)

Location: B16

Abstract: The non-existence of an actual EU patent system is an important obstacle for the achievement of the internal market. For the first time, after more than 50 years of negotiations, an agreement between most of the Member States of the EU has been achieved in order to attribute both unitary effects to European patents in their territories, and exclusive competence to a newly created Unified Patent Court for all sort of infringements and actions for revocation of European patents. The experience is unique in the history of private law, but it does not come at any cost: it explains at the same time until what extent the European construction becomes more and more intergovernmental and less and less institutional, marking a dangerous tendency to move from a delegation/supervision scheme to a simple replacement of the EU institutions by the Member States themselves. European Union, quo vadis?

Speaker: Manuel Desantes is Professor of Law, University of Alicante (Spain), since 1992, Member of Counsel of the IP firm ELZABURU, and Vice-President of the Spanish Jury of Design. Professor Desantes served in the past as Vice-President and President in acting of the University of Alicante (1996-1998), as Member of the Legal Service of the European Commission, responsible for Intellectual Property and Electronic Commerce (1998-2001), and as Vice-President (Directorate-General 5, Legal and International Affairs) of the European Patent Office (2001-2008). He founded and was the Director of the Magister Lvcentinvs (Intellectual Property and Information Technology Master's Degree), University of Alicante (1994-1997).