WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3505/98 by Amedeo AMADEO Protection of inventions by utility model
Date: 1998-11-25
Institutions: AMADEO, European Parliament
Subjects: EC Regulation, European industrial area, copyright, designs and models, proposal (EU)

C 320/52

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

6.11.1999

Joint answer
to Written Questions E-3500/98 and E-3796/98
given by Mr van den Broek on behalf of the Commission

(27 January 1999)

The Commission established internal rules for payment deadlines in 1997, ahead of the introduction of the
proposed late payments directive (1), confirming the payments should be made within 60 days of receipt of the
payment request. This period can be suspended if, for example, the payment request is not adequately
supported by justifying documents or if further checks are needed.

In the case of TACIS as well as of PHARE, the deadline has been exceeded in a number of cases with the result
that, in the first ten months of 1998, the average period for making these payments was 73,6 days. This
average covers beneficiaries across the board independent of the quality of the files presented.

The Commission has received representations about payment delays in respect of TACIS from a number of
organisations and individuals, principally United Kingdom-based consultants. The Commission would also
refer the Honourable Members to its reply to Written Question E-3236/98 by Mr Mather (2).

The Commission does not collate statistics of outstanding invoices by the country of origin of the contractor.
To do so would reduce resources available to the verification and processing of these payment claims.

As to the future, the newly created Joint relex service is putting resources into place to reduce payment delays
as quickly as possible and there has already been marked progress. Moreover the Commission is reviewing the
financial structure of the contracts with a view to strengthening the verification and simplifying and
harmonising the procedures.

(1) COM(98) 615 final.
(2) OJ C 182, 28.6.1999, p. 53.

(1999/C 320/069)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3505/98

by Amedeo Amadeo (NI) to the Commission

(25 November 1998)

Subject: Protection of inventions by utility model

With reference to the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive approximating the legal
arrangements for the protection of inventions by utility model (COM(97) 691 final : 97/0356 COD) (1) and to
the limited scope of the definition of utility model in Article 1 thereof, can the Commission ensure that if the
current wording of that article is retained, the concepts of ‘inventive step’ and new inventions ‘susceptible to
industrial application’ appear directly in the definition, these being the genuinely operative ones, as the
Commission acknowledges in Article 3 of the proposal?

(1) OJ C 36, 3.2.1998, p. 13.

Answer by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission

(14 January 1999)

The proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive approximating the legal arrangements for the
protection of inventions by utility model, submitted by the Commission on 12 December 1997, is currently
being considered by the Council and Parliament as part of the co-decision procedure.

The concerns voiced by the honourable Member regarding the concepts of ‘inventive step’ and ‘new inventions
susceptible to industrial application’ in fact refer to essential points of the proposal for a directive.