Industrial property: Community patent

The Council noted a progress report by the Presidency and held a wide-ranging exchange of views on the outstanding problems concerning the creation of a Community patent. Having noted the principal difficulties of the various delegations with the common approach which it was proposing, the Presidency said that it would do everything possible to draw up a compromise text that all delegations could accept, in order to reach agreement by the end of the year. The Permanent Representatives Committee was invited to press ahead with work on all aspects of the creation of the Community patent. The President of the Council pointed out that all delegations had insisted on the need for the Community patent to be credible. As regards developments to date, the Lisbon European Council's conclusions, subsequently confirmed by the Feira and Stockholm European Councils, requested that a Community patent including the utility model be available by the end of 2001 at the latest. �