EU to mull intellectual property charter

Brussels, Apr 25: Public and private research bodies could sign up to a charter to bolster the protection of ideas and ease their commercial use across the European Union (EU), an EU document said.

The bloc's industry and research ministers meet in Germany on Apr 26-28 to discuss a draft Intellectual Property Charter.

''Currently there is a lack of a Community-wide, democratically legitimate framework of the principles and understanding of intellectual property in public research institutions and universities,'' the document said.

There are no rules on cooperation between public institutions and industry or between privately funded research institutions and public ones.

''Because of the lack of such a framework research results are often not used to the necessary extent,'' the document said.

The charter could encourage the use of best practices.

The EU has failed to adopt a single EU-wide patent that is cheap for business to acquire and defend due to spats over languages and which court should enforce it. The discussion document said a voluntary charter could contain recommendations such as a clear written agreement on ownership of research results.

The results of publicly-funded research should be transferable to private companies, the charter could say.

The charter suggests a central EU-wide point of contact to give information on intellectual property rights.

The European Commission wants a cheap and simple patenting system in the EU to encourage smaller firms in particular to innovate and introduce new goods and services to boost growth.

Reuters>