The Administrative Council of the EPO will meet from 28 to 30 June in Munich.The agenda (CA/71/10) numbers about 60 pointsand a roughly equal number of supporting documents.The election of a new Chairman of the Administrative Council and the appointments ofnew Vice-Presidents for DG1 (search and examination) and for DG5 (legal matters) areamongst the more important internal matters to be dealt with. Topics of interest forthe external stakeholder include those concerned with fee reforms, and withco-operation at European and at global level.

The Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) has recently sent a letterto the Members of the European Parliament pleading for accessionof the European Union to the European Patent Organisation.

Bruno van Pottelsberghe has just published a policy brief entitled"Europe should stop taxing innovation".In this paper he argues the'enhanced' patent system proposed by the Competitiveness Council in December 2009 may actually weaken the patent system in Europe.

Richard Yung's views on the composition of the Administrative Council in the light of the recent Presidential election.

In December last year the EU Council has agreed on a number of conclusions on the main features of the Community Patent and the EU Patents Court. In the same month Jérôme Danguy and Bruno van Pottelsberghe published a working paper analysing the costs and benefits of the Community Patent. The main conclusion of the paper is that with a sensible level of fees the Community Patent should be beneficial for the business sector, the European Patent Office (EPO) and most of the National Patent Offices (NPOs), mainly due the abolition of translations and the avoidance of paralel litigations. Patent attorneys, lawyers specialised in patent litigation and translators would stand to lose part of their income, whereas both the EPO and the NPOs would risk to lose some of their power. According to the authors this provides an explanation for the observedresistance to the Community Patent.