The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, has warned that the European patent may never be realised, after 14 years in the pipeline, unless there is a breakthrough during the Irish Presidency of the EU.
Ms Harney said the fate of the European patent would be seen outside the EU as a "litmus test" of whether the EU is capable of pushing through the Lisbon Agenda on competitiveness and innovation.
"This is the last gasp in advance of the new European Commission," said Ms Harney in Berlin yesterday. It would be a "great achievement" to reach an agreement on the patent issue, she said. "But we need a patent that is usable and affordable. Having it just for the sake of it is not enough."
The single European patent would simplify the current system where separate patents are required in each member-state. Member-states disagree over whether patent applications should be possible in any European language or just in English. The Irish Presidency has proposed allowing applications to be filed in English, German or French.
Ms Harney said an agreement was essential to make European companies more competitive, particularly as the cost of patents in the US was just a quarter of that in the EU.
During Ireland's EU Presidency, Ms Harney is chair of the Competitiveness Council, the body charged with realising the Lisbon Strategy to make Europe the world's most competitive economy by 2010.
She admitted that the council to date "hasn't been as effective as it might have been" and that the Lisbon timetable has slipped.
She said enlargement in May would make the Lisbon reforms even more urgent but expressed hope that the 10 accession states would "bring their zeal for reform to the table" and drive on the Lisbon agenda.
Discussing the patent issue, the Tánaiste remarked that: "Americans are not smarter than us, they're just quicker at getting things done." However, she declined to be drawn during her visit to the German capital on her by now notorious remark that Ireland was spiritually "closer to Boston than Berlin".
Ms Harney met German economics and labour minister, Mr Wolfgang Clement and Ms Brigitte Zypries, the justice minister, and wished the German government well with its reforms. The reforms last weekend cost Chancellor Schröder his job as head of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
He was forced out by party left-wingers who have criticised his reforms as overly market-driven. Or, as Ms Harney might say, closer to Boston than Berlin.
