Negotiations on the creation of a single EU patent system collapsed on Tuesday, prompting the meeting's chair, Irish Tanaiste Mary Harney, to observe that the EU member states are "stronger on the rhetoric than on the reality".
Although no countries have been officially named, reports in the European media following the failure of the talks have suggested that Germany was the largest fly in the ointment, objecting both to Spanish demands that certain parts of the patent be legally binding in all 20 official EU languages, and to the loss of its regional patent courts.
Spain, France and Portugal also reportedly voted against a compromise proposal put forward by the Irish EU presidency, and Italy abstained.
The Union-wide patent proposals were intended to cut costs for inventors and businesses seeking to protect their intellectual property. Currently, the cost of patenting an invention across Europe is five times that of protecting the same IP in the United States.
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