Today, the European Commission has proposed new Regulations in relation to Standard Essential Patents, Compulsory Licenses, and Supplementary Protection Certificates.

For Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) we have the (much leaked) now official Regulation relating to SEPs. This proposes that the EUIPO (that at the moment deals with designs and trademarks) sets up a competence centre for maintaining a register of SEPs and administers a system for the assessment of the essentiality of SEPs, FRAND determination and aggregate royalty determination. The EUIPO will also manage a roster of evaluators and conciliators to carry out these tasks and will provide training to them. This Regulation will apply to holders of a SEP in force in one or more Member States of the EU. The Regulation also proposes that a SEP that is not registered on the EUIPO SEP register cannot be enforced in the EU until it is registered and that a SEP holder will not be entitled to receive royalties or seek damages until the SEP is on the register.  

For Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs), new unitary SPCs are proposed. There is a regulation relating to a unitary SPC for medicinal products and a regulation relating to a unitary SPC for plant protection products. These proposed new unitary SPCs are said to complement the EU Unitary Patent that is available from 1 June 2023.

For Compulsory Licenses, a new EU-wide compulsory licensing framework is proposed to complement existing EU crisis instruments, such as the Single Market Emergency Instrument, HERA regulations and the Chips Act. 

We will be taking a close look at each of these and will follow up with our thoughts.