Committee on Legal Affairs Ordinary Meeting
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JURI European Parliament
Follow its sittingsMatthias Leistner
By contrast, in my personal opinion as an patent law expert, the UPC's approach since 2024 has indeed been more balanced. In the Merrell and Edwards case concerning third party interests, namely patients' interests in certain, in the provision of certain pharmaceutical products, the court held that while injunctions have to be granted as a rule, there can be limitations or denial of injunctive relief in certain special cases, in particular when the granting of injunctive relief would conflict with the IPRED's proportionality principle.
And indeed, the court has done so in that case, even sharpening the proportionality considerations of the Munich local division of the court and thus taking proportionality into account in a third party interest public health related case. That goes further than what the German courts have done in those cases. In addition, the UPC has also taken into account of proportionality in a single case concerning a supply chain constellation in the automotive industry. Apart from that, there is of course also a number of cases where proportionality was considered but ultimately dismissed. In my view, the overall picture in the UPC is that indeed the UPC's approach is smarter, more balanced and on principle at a high level takes into account the proportionality principle.
Thus the principles in the UPC from my point of view by and large are satisfactory. Of course, a number of open questions remain that I have listed on this slide and this I have described in larger detail in my written briefing, don't have the time to discuss this here today. As regards the patent assertion entities, I have to be very brief. Actually, I think that their role and function will always very much depend on all the facts of the individual case, that it will be very hard to define those entities in a satisfactory way and that thus the problems related to the PAEs should rather be discussed in the context of the recently withdrawn SEP regulation, which is not our topic today. Would be my pleasure to discuss that on another at another occasion, but that is not our topic today.
As for the SEPs, we will have to see how the new PMAC of the UPC for out-of-court arbitration in Budapest will work in the future. It is non-mandatory out-of-court arbitration, but if the UPC in in the context of case management developed certain weak pressure to the parties to first do an out-of-court arbitration in the PMAC, that might at least be a little bit helpful for the parties settling in those cases, although of course it wouldn't amount to mandatory arbitration, but there was certain shortcomings in the SEP regulation that we might discuss at another occasion. Concerning proportionality, I think the PAE issue should just flexibly feed into the proportionality analysis as a non-binding, non-conclusive indicator that certain problems might be present in a given case, but that shouldn't keep shouldn't go any further. So, what could be done in the realm of proportionality? I think there is a certain problem in that German, Dutch and Italian courts tend to underestimate proportionality considerations and I do think that mere information exchange, soft law measures, communications and the like will help very little.
Nonetheless, I would warn you to prematurely discuss and develop legislative revision in that regard because my practical warning is that legislative revision might change the practice of those courts equally little. This very much amounts to the applications of the law to the facts of each individual case and the inherent biases in the approaches of the judges in that regard will be very hard to change by way of mere legislative revision. And in the end of the day, practically, political risk is involved. At worst, such revision would achieve rather little while causing new problems, new legal uncertainty, new administrative cost.
This brings me to the end. What you should consider instead is an overall broad revision of secondary and intermediary liability in the IPRED because that is an area where tangible inconsistency, disharmonization and administrative costs because of legal uncertainty can be identified not only across the member states but also across the various different IP rights. First proposal. Second proposal, you should think further about remedies for the defendant in cases of unjustified or even abusive enforcement. This concerns mainly the provisional enforcement by lower courts' judgments that are still under appeal and later corrected or invalidated on appeal.
Having remedies for the defendant, in particular damages based on a strict liability principle for injuries incurred from such provisional enforcement, would contribute to an equality of arms level playing field in the IPRED and might thus indirectly help to remedy some problems concerning proportionality and the PAEs as well because then those actors and agents would be under the risk of strict damages liability if they provisionally enforce certain judgments and thus this might indirectly and decentrally contribute to the solving of those problems. Finally last slide and that is the end of my presentation. You might want to look into some further issues that are not in the Commission's report at all. I called this completing the picture. I think I have it here correctly but it brings me to the end anyway.
And this will be mainly territoriality after the CJEU's BSH and Electrolux judgment. That is of course a very recent development so no surprise that I present this newly here but the tendency towards extraterritorial enforcement and international jurisdiction of EU patent courts regarding US patents, Asian patents, but also patents of non-EU member states but which are part of the EPC system such as the UK might well raise a couple of new problems down the road and you might be aware of that when discussing the possible revision of the IPRED. That is just one thing that couldn't have been taken account by the Commission because it is a development of the last six months and should rather be on your radar when having a comprehensive complete discussion of possible avenues for revision. Thanks very much for your attention. I was two minutes too long.
Sorry about that.
Marion Walsmann
Sehr, sehr herzlichen Dank, Herr Professor Leistner, für dieses, für diese Einordnung, für dieses Statement, auch den Ausblick und die Empfehlungen. Und wir kommen jetzt zu unserem zweiten Experten, Herrn Professor Scott Marcus vom Center for European Policy Studies und dem European, und der European University Institute. Und ich würde Ihnen ebenso das Wort für zehn Minuten erteilen und Sie geben einen Überblick über die Wirksamkeit und Effizienz der IPRED. Bitteschön, Sie haben das Wort.
Ja bitte das Mikrofon benutzen Herr Professor, sonst verstehen wir Sie nicht.
Scott Marcus
Ich hab's nicht eingeschaltet, Entschuldigung. Gut. Entschuldigung. Vielen Dank Frau Chairperson. Ja, first let me note that this is a very much preliminary assessment.
I've had only a few weeks to look at these and some of these are new areas for me. Second, while I'm honored with my affiliations to CEPS and to the European University Institute, the work is done in a personal capacity, so anything that I say reflects personal views, not those of the institutions I'm affiliated with. If you're unhappy with anything, take it up with me, not with them. Good. Now, the task that I was given by the Parliament was to look at technological and economic impacts, to comment on the Commission's 2026 follow-on study, and also to make recommendations.
So my focus here is going to be rather different from those of my very distinguished legal expert co-panelists here. Rather, I'm looking at effects and not so much on legal coherence. And with that said, let's start with what really were the goals of the IPRED in the first place. If we look at the recitals, we see that starting right at recital one, they're looking at protection of intellectual property as a matter of ensuring innovation, of trying to strike a balance between legitimate profit for the creators versus widest possible dissemination and essentially use of the data. So this notion of balance was very much fundamental in the recitals.
Now, as I look at the impacts, I'm not going to be looking mainly at administrative costs for the laws, and I also can't look solely at IPRED. The question is, what are the impacts with IPRED as seen as part of a broader ecosystem? So the questions for me that are important are: has IPRED been effective in reducing costs to society of either patent infringement or online piracy? Has it been mitigating harm with any of these, and to what extent is it causing collateral damage? And here it's important to distinguish between patent infringement kind of issue versus copyright infringement versus, for that matter, counterfeiting, which I won't really touch on today.
So there's no question that infringement of patents has societal costs, but there's real considerable doubt as to how big those costs are. To the extent that they've been quantified, it's mostly been in the United States. There's really hardly any data in Europe as to what the costs are, plus so much of this is in out-of-court settlements for which there would be no externally visible data. What we do know in the area of piracy, of copyright infringement, is that there's been a gradual decline in many forms of piracy, especially areas like music, but an increase in piracy for online audio-visual, including in particular sports and events. And that's what we see here.
This is data from the European Intellectual Property Office. They do, I think, as good a job as can be done in capturing data on something that people don't necessarily want to talk about. And you see the lines are moving up, maybe not dramatically, but they're moving up. So everything that's been done over the years isn't causing a dynamic reduction. Now, the study that was conducted for the Commission, not by the Commission, has strengths and weaknesses.
I don't need to talk about what's in the study, Professor Leistner's done a superb job of clarifying that. What I would say is the data captured by those experts is very good. They did a conscientious job on that. The recommendations I find really puzzling. The report has extraordinary difficulty calling a spade a spade.
So what I will be doing in my remarks is saying what they should have concluded based on the data that they captured.
Now, if we look at proportionality, first a few words about why proportionality, and you heard this also from Professor Leistner. Proportionality is basic in all EU jurisprudence, and it's the way of trying to strike a certain balance. In this case, balance between what we've already seen in the recitals, legitimate profit for the creators versus widest possible dissemination. And there's also emphasis in CJEU guidance and in the IPRED itself in its recitals that this needs to be looked at case by case. This is where we see balance between the interests of rights holders versus those of users.
This is also where we should be seeing balance in burden on those who have to implement these injunctions. And what's happening now? Well, what we see in the data in the study is that the percentages of surveyed individuals who say that key elements that should be taken into account in proportionality, that percentage is really surprisingly low. It's less than 20% for almost all of these fundamental things like is the injunction for infringement of a tiny portion of a big product. You know, all of the things that ought to be getting looked at apparently aren't yet looked at.
The study also cites work by Darts-IP, which is probably the best repository of these infringement cases. And having looked at some 600 of them, they found that proportionality was looked at in less than 1% of the cases. So the report says it's recognized as a principle in all of the member states. Thank you very much. It's clear it's not realistically being implemented except in very rare cases.
And that failure to properly implement obviously favors rights holders. Now, what we also see in the study among the interviewed parties is that rights holders think that everything is great, no change is needed, and everybody else thinks that change is needed. If the only parties that think that things are great are the ones who benefit from dysfunction, that should give us pause. Now, if we, you have to give me a second here because I certainly can't read the screen. Okay, what we also see here is that when we switch to the question of patent assertion entities, which are otherwise known as patent trolls, almost all of the cases up to the point when the study was done, I take very much Professor Leistner's point we don't have the UPC yet, the Unified Patent Court yet, but almost all of the cases were in Germany.
And what the report makes clear is that the PAEs like Germany because they can almost always get an injunction and also because proportionality is hardly ever invoked there. There was a reform to German law in 2022. If one reads the reform, one might almost think that the intent was to undermine the CJEU guidance rather than to implement. Professor Leistner assures me that's not the case. I take it seriously as an expert, but the effect has been as if that were the case.
Let me put it that way. And so we have a system that's really quite ineffective. And what we also see in remarks in the study, interviewee comments, is that the uncertainty creates an incentive for defendants to quickly enter into licensing agreements because of the threat of an injunction which they know is very likely to be granted in Germany, which is where almost all of the cases are.
So these issues are serious and they really go beyond fragmentation. Failed implementation and a race to the bottom which Germany has won seem to me to be really fundamental problems that clearly jump off the page in the report. Now moving on to dynamic injunctions and here we're switching from patent infringement to copyright infringement. There's actually hardly anything in the study about impacts but I've studied this in other work that I've done. And again the EU Intellectual Property Office has done good studies on this material.
So one of the things they tell us is that about one European in seven admits to having knowingly viewed infringing material, material that was subject to copyright from illegal sources, from pirates. And about one third, one in three of those who are aged 15 to 24 admit to having viewed pirate content knowingly. Now it's probably somewhat underreported because I think that people would tend not to want to out themselves even in a survey that's nominally anonymous. But it's still, no matter how you look at it, it's big numbers. One of the most interesting things in that survey data is that about 43% said that if prices were lower they would be more inclined not to view, of legal content were lower, they would be less inclined to view pirate content.
And conversely among those who don't view pirate content they say one of the main reasons they don't is that they can get what they want at prices they can afford. So clearly there's a big linkage here between price, availability and use of pirate content. Here you see a graph again from the EUIPO about trends across the member states. It's different from one member state to the other. This trend is do you think that it's okay to view pirate content for personal use?
And the short answer is a surprisingly large fraction of Europeans think that for personal use they should be okay. And that's especially true for younger Europeans. Now when we look at dynamic blocking injunctions they surely have their role to play. How effective have they been? Past academic literature would have argued that there's very little effect and that it's very short-lived.
There's no really current data for Europe. The best study I've seen in recent years was done by Danaher in 2023. It's for India and for Brazil. It shows increase in use of legal content of about 3% to 8%. So I think this says on the one hand there is a role for dynamic injunctions.
It also says this is not a game changer. And what we should really take on board here is that we're not going to solve the problem solely through injunctions whether they're dynamic or not. What we've also seen is a tendency for overblocking, for many other collateral damage problems as a result of these injunctions due to many reasons. Institutional shortcomings, the people that are imposing these don't necessarily understand the full implications, technical limitations in how things are blocked and also misaligned incentives which is to say the parties, the rights holders generally don't pay for this. And so the parties that bear the cost are not the ones that ask for the injunctions.
To an economist this is a concern. I would also argue that other tools are largely neglected. We'll come back to that in the recommendations. I can skip ahead here in the interest of time I think. So okay if we move then to recommendations I've got only two slides here.
I'm almost done, sorry for running also a little bit over. So on the patent infringement proceedings what I would strongly argue, and here I'm on a little bit of a different page I guess than Professor Leistner, I think there is scope for effective implementation and I think that doing what has been attempted for trade secrets makes sense.
I think my fellow panelists have some skepticism about how effective it would be, but I would push for it anyway. There, there was a specific obligation before an injunction is imposed for the courts to look at a series of factors that were relevant, including many things, impact on fundamental rights, clearly here the question of whether there's, whether there's a small piece of a large product being impacted, the impact on both the user and the rights holder. Those are the kind of things that could be reflected. Getting this right would be tricky, but I think could be done. And where in fact many of the measures that have been attempted to be brought into effect, as for instance the German law, but then ignored by judges, if that's done systematically, it would create a possibility for an infringement proceeding on the part of the Commission.
So it would actually create some possibility of finally enforcing this. I would also say that flanking measures are needed. For the UPC already done, the kind of bifurcation that we see in Germany between the decision about patent legitimacy, patent validity versus the injunction, that separation needs to be corrected. Otherwise we see issues like for example in the R2 Intel case, where only years later it was seen that the patent was invalid even though meanwhile many measures were taken and many costs incurred. If we move ahead to the, to online piracy and blocking injunctions, one of the biggest things is actually in the hands of the rights holders themselves.
To the extent that they make their content less expensive and more broadly available, obviating the need for subscribers to have multiple subscriptions to access a single team, and facilitating cross-border access, these are things the rights holders themselves can do. And that as a, as a combined effect with the injunctions, which have only limited effect, would I think have much better prospect of achieving something. Secondly, the most harmful effects of DBIs really need to get reined in. Better safeguards on many kind of procedural aspects, better training for the officials who actually implement them, and one particular form, IP address blocking, really should be avoided altogether. There are better ways to do it that have less collateral damage.
Courts in Austria have already come to that conclusion. With that, sorry that I ran over, and back to you, Madam Chairperson.
Marion Walsmann
Herzlichen Dank, Herr Professor Scott Marcus, für Ihre Ausführungen, interessante Grundlage auch nachher nachzufragen. Und wir kommen jetzt zu unserem dritten Redner, Herrn Professor Dr. Rafal Sikorski von der Adam-Mickiewicz-Universität, und jetzt geht es um einen Vortrag über die Reform der IPRED-Richtlinie mit Fokus auf den Patenten. Lieber Herr Professor Sikorski, Sie haben ebenfalls das Wort für zehn Minuten. Bitte schön.
Radosław Sikorski
Madam Chair, distinguished members of Parliament, dear guests, it's an honor to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Many thanks to the organizers who have done an excellent job and have pushed us into certain directions and have been very helpful with the materials and assistance and organizing calls. That was indeed very helpful prior to this interesting workshop. Thank you very much.
I will concentrate on a limited number of issues since my predecessors, both Professor Leistner and Professor Scott Marcus, have discussed a number of issues already. I will restrict myself to patents and will then restrict myself to an issue that I think is most controversial when it comes to IPRED directive, namely the application of proportionality.
I will just give some background as to where what's the importance of proportionality within the framework of IPRED directive. I will then discuss how proportionality is received in the Member States. German example is something that we always discuss, but we do have cases coming from France, and we of course have to deal with the UPC jurisprudence right now and see how that reception goes. So I will discuss that. I will then talk slightly about the importance of proportionality for both the competitiveness of various sectors of European economy, as well as the importance of application of proportionality for European consumers.
I think that is important. And that will bring me to the last stage where I will say a few things about how we should move forward. Now, you will see development in our presentations. Professor Leistner was the most restrained. Professor Schot-Marcus proposed to have factors like the ones that we have in the Trade Secrets Directive already.
I will even go further. I will accept the factors, but I will also move with some rebuttable presumptions of disproportionality that I think we can have given the state of discussion within the academic circles, business, and a lot of understanding that we have, common understanding that we have with respect to how proportionality, in what cases, what scenarios it could be applied. This I do with the purpose of moving forward with the application of proportionality, as you can quickly see. I'm not satisfied with the way we implement it, we have implemented this so far. So, a few general comments so that you see how important the proportionality is.
Of course, it's one of the three principles upon which IP enforcement is based in the IPRED directive. It comes along effectiveness and dissuasiveness, and proportionality is the third. There are various references to other terms that are linked to proportionality: avoiding barriers to trade, safeguarding against abuse, and fairness and equitability. This all has very similar background. Proportionality is common to all the legal systems of all Member States.
It's also a principle of European Union law. So it's no surprise that in the enforcement in private law, we do talk about proportionality of procedures, measures, and remedies. Of course, proportionality is in some cases reflected directly in the design of the remedies, for example, the right to information or the recall removal. There the term proportionate appears explicitly. But where proportionality is most contentious, where the application is most contentious, is the injunctions.
And it is not the preliminary injunctions, but the permanent injunctions, the decision that the court makes once it has examined the case, the facts of the case, once it has gone through the substantive process of the case. This is the decision, the decision on the merits is made, and then the court decides about a remedy: permanent injunctions. This is where proportionality is the most controversial.
It comes in a number of scenarios, really. This is where the need for the application of proportionality is raised. One of them is complex products, R2 Semiconductor and Intel is one of the cases decided by German courts, a small patent reading on technology, various technology, on one technology used among many others in the Intel chip. In this case, it was a patent reading on protection against voltage spikes, which allowed the semiconductors not to overheat. But apart from many technologies employed in that particular product, that was one of them.
So we have complex products and patents reading on minor parts of technologies used in those products. Then we have patent assertion entities, entities that are not, they are very different, that's true. We are mostly concerned by those that neither develop technology, so are neither involved in R&D nor in manufacturing. These are, these are companies that obtain patent portfolios in various scenarios and go after those who implement them, usually after the process of implementation, making it very difficult and very costly to work around and, of course, leveraging that situation. Then we have proportionality when balancing fundamental rights, right to health, right to life, Merrell an excellent example, public interest concerns, third party interest, that comes up in the Merrell case, Edwards and Merrell case related to patents reading on medical, medical devices.
In all those cases, proportionality is raised in order for an injunction to be tailored. That means sometimes denied altogether, sometimes tailoring means carve-outs of certain products or carve-outs for a certain period of time. That does not mean taking injunctions off the table altogether. That, of course, is very often a problem in certain sectors of our economy, ICT, consumer electronics, telecommunications. That, that's where these problems appear.
It's not a problem of all sectors of European economy, it is restricted to some, but this is exactly where it is, it is, it is needed. As to the reception of proportionality, we're not very good when it comes to this. Germany has introduced this into law, but when we look at the jurisprudence, it is very restrained. And the language that you will hear all the time from the German courts is that it comes in very exceptional, very exceptional situations. So, so you see the restraint even with the adoption of the new law, Article 139 in 2021, I believe.
Even though the explanatory memorandum was excellent from the German ministry and has covered all the instances that I've discussed, there is not much change. And Germany is one of the key forums for patent litigation in Europe. That is why we all look towards the development in Germany. And as I said, there is a lot of skepticism surrounding, to say the least, surrounding this concept. An interesting decision coming from France, I put it on the board relating to those scooters that we use in the cities to move fast in congested traffic.
It's a case of a French producer, a little patent reading on minor technology used in the axle so that you don't fall when you move one side or the other. And interestingly, first instance courts granted an injunction. And then came rethinking from the Court of Appeals in Paris and the decision was not to, to just grant damages.
It was believed that this was the right thing to do to the patent holder. The patent was very close towards its expiry and the court thought that the patent holder will be satisfied or should be satisfied with the damages and it declined that injunctive relief. Now the developments in Unified Patent Court are extremely important. This is the most, this is the court where really patent law will develop in the coming years. The jurisprudence of that court and the jurisdiction, the jurisdictional scope of that court will only grow over time with the expiry of the termination interim periods in the UPC agreement.
Now, there is a change. We notice that and Professor Leistner already pointed to Edwards Meril. And we have a decision related to medical devices, heart valves, artificial heart valves, very specific issue. This is where there was no alternative and the court decided not to grant an injunction. It provided for a carve-out.
It was a change from what we had previously in Germany. So now the court of, the UPC did differently, acted differently. It was more in line with what with the approach already presented in the UK some years some years ago. So this is one example. But in a number of cases related to component patents, for example, coming from example from the local division in Dusseldorf, Viosys, Klein e-commerce expert Klein expert e-commerce case, first instance court decision.
This is where small patent reading on a LED technology used in smartphones was enough to block the whole product. Later the patent was invalidated by the Court of Appeals, but the first instance court closed the market for for that product for a significant period period of time. When you read the language coming from the justifications from UPC, my concern is that there is it very much repeats the skepticism towards proportionality that is take the approach taken by the German the that has been taken by the German courts so far. So I notice some slight change, but I think there is restraint is still there is still this approach towards proportionality being highly applicable in highly exceptional highly exceptional cases. Now, as I said, this has tremendous influence on the competitiveness might have influence on competitiveness of European manufacturers.
Please notice they will be placed at a disadvantage, for example, against the US manufacturers who have a more flexible system of injunctive relief in their country. I think we should try to create a favorable agree favorable environment to manufacturing companies in Europe right now. I think this helps this. Second, if you look at how products are banned from the market, that has tremendous influence on the prices that our European consumers, all of us, pay for the products. If you throw out a whole Acer or Asus or products, you end up with very often end up with products priced higher.
That that is not very helpful for our for our consumers. So these concerns are I think something that we need to watch. As to what we should do, option one, stay with what we have. I think things have gone too far.
Option two, provide the guidelines. But guidelines are good when the Commission provides the guidelines and tells us how it will apply the law. I do not think it will have effect on the courts. I think guidelines have proved ineffective so far in this area of of remedies in IP law, so I would not advise that. My solution is going further.
I would apply the same approach that Professor Skon-Markus advocated for, namely bring the bring the factors into consideration that we do have under the Trade Secrets Directive. But I would go one step further. In case of complex products and patent assertion entities, I would advocate for, and this is where I go further than Professor Skon-Markus, I would advocate for a rebuttable presumption of disproportionate disproportionate nature of injunctive of permanent injunctions. This is where you would need a patent holder to prove that in this particular case, and please remember this is always very fact-specific, indeed the injunction would not be disproportionate, it would be a proportionate remedy. So I would reverse the burden the burden of proof and with this I would like to end, sorry for going a bit over time.
Marion Walsmann
Vielen herzlichen Dank, lieber Herr Professor Sikorski. Herrn Professor Sikorski und Herrn Professor Leistner hatte ich ja auch schon das Vergnügen in einem Forum in Luxemburg zu hören. Wir kommen auf alle Fälle jetzt zu den Mitgliedern des Ausschusses, die die Möglichkeit haben, Fragen oder Anmerkungen auch an die Experten zu richten. Wir haben bisher drei Wortmeldungen auch dazu vorliegen und ich würde zunächst Herrn Kollegen Voss als Koordinator für die EVP das Wort erteilen. Zwei bis drei Minuten, wir müssen die Zeit wieder reinholen.
Axel Voss
Ui. Ja, ich bemühe mich, habe natürlich viele Fragen rund um KI. Oh, sehr gut, vielen Dank. Rund um KI und generativer KI und so auch jedenfalls erstmal ganz herzlichen Dank für die Präsentation. Um es jetzt kurz zu machen, um IPRED an das digitale Zeitalter anzupassen, müssen finde ich auch viele Fragen von KI auch geklärt werden.
Wir haben uns da bereits zum Urheberrecht ja Gedanken gemacht und ein INI im März auch abgestimmt. Würden Sie aus Ihrer Sicht das ähnlich vielleicht machen, dass Sie aus Rechteinhaberverstöße durch KI und wie man die Beweisführung hier antreten kann und wie man vielleicht auch Geheimhaltungspflichten mit Auskunftsvorschriften vereinbaren könnte. Das wäre so eine dieser Maßnahmen. Ich würde natürlich darüber hinaus fragen, sind die heutigen Instrumente aus Ihrer Sicht ausreichend, um gegen KI-gestützte Verletzungen von Rechten irgendwie auch vorzugeben? Brauchen wir da neue Auskunfts- und Beweisregeln?
Ist IPRED noch überhaupt geeignet in der digitalen Welt das durchzuführen? Dann auf einer anderen Ebene, wo würden Sie denn heute die größten Vollzugsdefizite eigentlich festmachen? Sind ist das bei Plattformen, ist das bei grenzüberschreitender Durchsetzung oder bei der Bekämpfung professioneller Piraterie? Und dann vielleicht zum Abschluss, was glaube ich auch nicht einfach zu beantworten sein wird, aber wie sollte denn eine modernisierte IPRED aussehen, die zum einen wirksame Rechtsdurchsetzung ermöglicht, Grundrechte wahrt und den Herausforderungen einer Plattformökonomie oder einer Datenwirtschaft oder eben auch generativer KI auch gerecht wird?
Marion Walsmann
Ganz herzlichen Dank, lieber Axel, für deine Frage. Und jetzt meine liebe Kollegin Maravillas Abadía Jover, bitte, du hast das Wort.
Maravillas Abadía Jover
Muchas gracias y gracias a los ponentes por sus contribuciones. Escuchando sus intervenciones, la pregunta que estamos tratando aquí es si el marco actual sigue respondiendo plenamente a las necesidades reales de Europa, teniendo en cuenta los avances de la evolución tecnológica, en este caso en el marco de la propiedad intelectual. Y como mencionan, entre los retos principales está el dar contenido al principio de proporcionalidad a la hora de asegurar la tutela efectiva de los derechos. Y esto, sin duda, se hará con jurisprudencia, pero creo que aprovechando el momento podemos ver una oportunidad en la IPRED para, sobre todo, también armonizar criterios entre los Estados miembros. Por otro lado, quisiera preguntarles sobre el papel que puede jugar esta directiva en la protección de la propiedad intelectual en ámbitos como el directo.
Han comentado la relación directa que existe entre el precio del producto y la piratería. Sin embargo, creo que también es nuestra responsabilidad buscar opciones que puedan proteger a los detentores de derechos. Me gustaría que pudieran desarrollar en este asunto porque al final no solo hablamos de proteger los derechos de autor de ciudadanos y de empresas, sino también de los efectos colaterales que tiene su violación, como por ejemplo la financiación ilegal de organizaciones. Gracias.
Marion Walsmann
Ja, vielen Dank. Jetzt habe ich mich selber auf die Rednerliste mit einer Frage gestellt. Eine meiner Fragen ist auch schon beantwortet worden, aber eine ist noch übrig. Eine der in der IPRED-Studie skizzierten möglichen Lösungen, um die wirksame Anwendung des Grundsatzes der Verhältnismäßigkeit auf Patente sicherzustellen, besteht ja darin, abzuwarten und die Auswirkungen der Entscheidung des Einheitlichen Patentgerichts auf die Harmonisierung der Anwendung des Grundsatzes der Verhältnismäßigkeit zu beachten. Sehen Sie, meine lieben Experten, darin eine tragfähige und wirksame Lösung für die bestehenden dringenden Probleme?
Das war eine kurze Frage. Ich schaue noch in die Runde, es sind keine weiteren Fragen jetzt signalisiert, sodass wir Ihnen, liebe Experten, noch mal jeweils zwei bis drei Minuten die Möglichkeit geben, zu antworten auf die Fragen. Und ich würde es in der Reihenfolge machen, in der wir vorhin auch die Stellungnahmen hatten. Vielleicht Herr Professor Leistner, wenn Sie sich zuerst melden wollen, dann bitteschön Sie zuerst.
Matthias Leistner
Sehr geehrte Frau Vorsitzende, vielen Dank. Nachdem ich besorgt war, zu lange zu sprechen, habe ich ja glaube ich jetzt im Vergleich sogar eher noch zwei bis drei Minuten gut. Dieses Privileg nehme ich mir auch, denn die hervorragende Frage von Herrn Voss gibt natürlich Gelegenheit, ein, zwei Dinge auch zukunftsorientiert einzuordnen und klarzustellen. Das betrifft zunächst die Frage, welche der hier diskutierten Probleme sich eigentlich spezifisch im Zusammenhang der IPRED-Richtlinie lösen lassen und welche der Probleme rechtssystematisch gar nicht in den Zusammenhang der IPRED-Richtlinie gehören.
Beispielsweise ist die Frage des deutschen zweigeteilten Patentsystems zwischen Nichtigkeitsfragen und Durchsetzungsfragen kein Problem, das wir im Zusammenhang der IPRED-Richtlinie ohne Weiteres und unmittelbar lösen könnten, sondern es ist eine Frage materiellen Rechts, von substantive law, und dann bräuchten wir Änderungen im substantive law. Wir sollten uns also, glaube ich, schon auf die Fragestellung konzentrieren, die sich jetzt spezifisch im Zusammenhang einer möglichen Revision der IPRED-Richtlinie stellt. Und insoweit, um nun auf die Frage von Herrn Voss zurückzukommen, glaube ich, dass natürlich viele der Fragestellungen, die sich jetzt im Zusammenhang mit KI, KI-Verletzungen, Verletzungen im Zusammenhang der KI durch die KI stellen, eher ins materielle Recht gehören. Das heißt, wir werden bestimmte Lösungsansätze insbesondere im materiellen Urheberrecht verfolgen müssen. Ich sehe die Probleme insgesamt im Patentrecht etwas weniger gravierend.
Ich sehe hier kein wesentliches Vollzugsdefizit. Und im Urheberrecht scheinen mir die Hauptprobleme ins materielle Recht, ins substantive law zu gehören, und dort sollten wir sie diskutieren und werden wir sie ja auch diskutieren, unter anderem aufgrund der Stellungnahme des JURI-Ausschusses des Europäischen Parlaments. Wenn man jetzt unmittelbar in die IPRED schauen würde, haben Sie den Finger in die Wunde gelegt. Die Fragestellung Auskunftsansprüche versus Schutz persönlicher Daten einerseits versus Schutz Trade Secrets andererseits ist natürlich einer der Bereiche, in denen wir schauen müssten. Das werden wir allerdings wiederum nicht allein in der IPRED gelöst bekommen.
Dann müsste man die Frage stellen, inwieweit gegebenenfalls die Durchsetzung geistiger Eigentumsrechte auch zur Relativierung persönlichen Datenschutzes führen könnte oder gar sollte. Erste Fragestellung, nicht unser Thema heute. Andererseits die Frage stellen, wie man gegebenenfalls im Rahmen von Verletzungsprozessen geistigen Eigentums dafür sorgen kann, dass insbesondere Trade Secrets in geeigneten Geheimverfahren, in Camera-Verfahren lediglich zur Kenntnis bestimmter Experten geschützt bleiben, aber gleichzeitig als Beweismittel verwertet werden können. Das wäre ein Portfolio, das in den Zusammenhang der Trade Secrets Directive, der Geschäftsgeheimnisrichtlinie gehören würde, in deren systematischem Zusammenhang wir das dann diskutieren müssten. Die IPRED als solche scheint mir tendenziell, mit aller Vorsicht, das war nicht unbedingt das Kernthema unserer Vorbereitung, durchaus KI-fit.
Aber diese Informationsauskunftsfrage, die im Dreiklang von GDPR, IPRED und Trade Secrets Directive zusammenhängend angegangen werden müsste, das ist eine spannende Frage. Wir bräuchten Geheimverfahren im Verletzungsprozess. Hochkomplexe Grundrechtsfrage, weshalb auch insbesondere Deutschland als Mitgliedstaat hier zurückhaltend war, im weiterentwickelte Instrumente in die Trade Secrets Directive aufzunehmen. Aber das wäre ein Portfolio, über das man nachdenken muss: Umgang mit Trade Secrets in Verletzungsprozessen. Zweite und dritte Frage dann dementsprechend etwas kürzer.
Zur zweiten Frage: Das scheint mir wiederum in der allgemein rechtspolitischen Ausrichtung nicht lediglich auf Durchsetzungsfragen zu zielen, sondern gerade auch auf die Ausgestaltung des Rahmens materiellen Rechts. Und um auf vergleichbarem Abstraktionsniveau zu antworten: Ich teile die Auffassung meines Kollegen Professor Sikorski, dass man natürlich sehr darauf achten muss, nicht die Innovationskraft der Europäischen Union zu verwechseln mit dem Erfolg europäischer und mitgliedstaatlicher Gerichte als Patentverletzungsgerichte.
Der Erfolg europäischer und mitgliedstaatlicher Gerichte als Patentverletzungsgerichte ist ein hoher Wert im weltweiten Rechtsvergleich, auch um unsere rechtspolitischen Zielsetzungen durchzusetzen, und er muss gehörig berücksichtigt werden in angemessenem Umfang. Er ist aber nicht zu verwechseln mit der Innovationskraft der Europäischen Union als solcher. Ich stimme Herrn Sikorski zu, dass etwa im Bereich der Standard Essential Patents natürlich beidseits Innovation stattfindet, einerseits auf Seiten der Standardentwickler, andererseits in hohem Umfang auch auf Seiten der Implementer, sodass gewisse Relativierung patentrechtlichen Schutzes hier die Innovationskraft der Union möglicherweise stärken kann. Ich bin nur etwas zurückhaltender hinsichtlich der Aussichten, hier mit Veränderungen des Gesetzestextes tatsächlich überaus große Änderungen in der tatsächlichen mitgliedstaatlichen Praxis zu erreichen. Denn Professor Markus hat hier einen ganz wesentlichen Punkt gebracht: Unvermeidlich wird es bei diesen Fragestellungen stets um die Anwendung des Gesetzes auf die individuellen Umstände des Einzelfalls gehen.
Und wenn insoweit bestimmte Vorprägungen mitgliedstaatlicher Richter in der Anwendung auf die Umstände des Einzelfalls in der Handhabung des Verhältnismäßigkeitseinwands zurückhaltend sind, dann sind die Möglichkeiten des Gesetzgebers, diese Haltung zu verändern, inhärent begrenzt, denn die Anwendung des Rechts auf den Einzelfall ist nun mal genuine Funktion der Richterinnen und Richter, und die diesbezüglichen Möglichkeiten, die Entwicklung tatsächlich schlagkräftig zu beeinflussen, beurteile ich etwas skeptischer als Kollege Sikorski, während ich seine Fallgruppenbildung, seine Analyse der Probleme durchaus in den Grundzügen und den groben Ansätzen teile. Das bringt mich zur dritten Frage unserer Vorsitzenden, die ja in der Tat völlig zu Recht gefragt hat, ob es dann nunmehr sinnvoll wäre abzuwarten, wie sich insbesondere die Dinge im Einheitspatentsystem entwickeln. Ich denke, wir müssen die unterschiedlichen Probleme sorgsam unterscheiden. Es geht ja letztendlich hier nicht lediglich ums Verhältnismäßigkeitsprinzip, sondern es geht um damit verbundene Probleme im Zusammenhang der standardessenziellen Patente und der Verhandlung und gegebenenfalls Festlegung von FRAND-Lizenzbedingungen weltweit in diesem Zusammenhang, und es geht um einige Fragestellungen mehr, die jetzt alle so ein bisschen so unter diesem Blickwinkel und der Perspektive des Verhältnismäßigkeitsgrundsatzes diskutiert werden, die aber systematisch sauber voneinander getrennt werden sollten. Was das UPC angeht, wäre ich tatsächlich der Auffassung, dass man diesem jungen und sich überraschend erfolgreich und abgewogen entwickelnden Gerichtssystem nunmehr auch gewisse Zeit und eine gewisse Chance einräumen sollte, bevor man die Spielregeln, unter denen dieses Gerichtssystem arbeitet, voreilig und vorzeitig verändert.
Was insbesondere die SEPs angeht, wird es sehr spannend sein zu beobachten, wie das PMAC in Budapest, also diese neu geschaffene Möglichkeit für Out-of-Court-Settlements, insoweit einen Einfluss entwickelt. Ich sehe auch eine insgesamt sehr ausgewogene und balancierte Rolle des Court of Appeal in Luxemburg, also der höheren Instanz, während natürlich in den unteren Instanzen der einzelnen Local und Regional Divisions die Entwicklung deutlich diverser, von einer größeren Varianz gekennzeichnet ist, aber da wird es ja zu einer gewissen Konsolidierung durch die Berufungsinstanz kommen, und in der Tat wäre meine Meinung insoweit, dass es sich lohnen würde abzuwarten. Zutreffend ist natürlich auch, dass aber insbesondere mit Blick auf standardessenzielle Patente und die FRAND-Problematik dennoch die Parallele zu den mitgliedstaatlichen Gerichten weiter zu beachten ist. Und wir sehen beispielsweise auch Empfehlungen, dann gegebenenfalls nationale Patente anzumelden, um uns in bestimmte, aus politischer Sicht möglicherweise problematische nationale Jurisdiktionen zu bewegen.
Das ist eine Problematik, die im systematischen Zusammenhang der möglichen, aber leider fehlerbehafteten und deshalb für den Augenblick zu Recht zurückgezogenen SEP-Verordnung gegebenenfalls neu zu diskutieren wäre und zum anderen möglicherweise auch unter Verhältnismäßigkeitsgesichtspunkten zu beobachten ist. Nun noch einmal: Wir werden nicht mit der Verhältnismäßigkeit die Probleme der Standard Essential Patents flächendeckend geregelt bekommen, da geht es um eine systematisch andere Frage, wie "can't be everything everywhere all at once". Wir müssen diese Portfolien systematisch trennen. Da würde ich hinsichtlich der SEP-Verordnung zu gewisser Zurückhaltung und gegebenenfalls neuen Überlegungen raten, die dann klüger sein müssten als der ursprüngliche Vorschlag: bessere Balance zwischen Effizienz der Rechtsdurchsetzung einerseits, Möglichkeit, die Parteien zu Lösungsansätzen zu bringen andererseits. Was die Proportionalität angeht, bin ich der Meinung, dass gesetzgeberische Veränderungen derzeit einerseits angesichts der bestehenden Probleme aus professioneller Sicht gerechtfertigt werden könnten, andererseits halte ich die Aussichten, die diesbezüglichen Verhältnisse durch eine Reform des Texts der Richtlinie zu verändern, für politisch hochrisikobehaftet und unsicher.
Und dann ist es letztlich eine Entscheidung, ob Sie dieses politische Risiko eingehen wollen, hier möglicherweise auch neue Unsicherheiten, neue Probleme, neue Rechtsunsicherheit zu schaffen, ohne die diesbezügliche Praxis der Gerichte in einzelnen Mitgliedstaaten nachhaltig verändern zu können im Wege gesetzgeberischer Veränderung. Vielen Dank.
Marion Walsmann
So, jetzt vielen herzlichen Dank. Ich war jetzt wirklich großzügig, damit die Redezeit wieder eingeholt wurde, aber wir haben noch zwei Wortmeldungen von Herrn Professor Scott und Herrn Professor Sikorski und wir haben die Kommission, die noch zu Wort kommen sollte, und dann müssen wir aber dringend zum nächsten Tagesordnungspunkt kommen. Meine Herren, Sie wissen jetzt, wo die Verantwortung bei Ihnen ist. Herr Professor Scott Marcus, bitte.
Scott Marcus
Danke schön. Gut, ich kann sehr kurz sein. Let me switch to English. Good. So, as far as Axel Voss's question, MEP Voss, does IPRED need substantial revision to deal with artificial intelligence?
I think we have to distinguish here between those portions that deal with patent infringement versus copyright infringement. I think they have very different implications. I haven't identified anything in the patent infringement area that would seem to require new handling in IPRED and I think on that I'm online with Professor Leistner. One area that I think we're all very much aware of and that the Parliament just recently held a hearing on and also by the way my university, the European University Institute in Florence, is the whole question of copyrighted training data for artificial intelligence. This is an area that unquestionably will need attention.
As you've probably already gathered, I seem to be more interventionist than my colleague to the left on some of these things, but I honestly don't know exactly how to fix this question. It's a very fundamental one. It's really quite striking that copyright law that was revised as recently as 2019 with provisions such as the two articles that deal with the text and data mining really didn't pick up on this coming trend, but of course none of us expected artificial intelligence to evolve and emerge as rapidly and as dramatically as what we've seen. Even, you know, I'm here as mostly as an economist, but I'm also very much an engineer and, you know, for me it was a bit of a shock to see how good it's gotten how quickly.
And fundamentally then, the question of how to preserve rights holder rights and at the same time not to impede technological progress is tricky. I mean, also with small snippets in websites, we've dealt with a variant of this. That's what text and data mining was meant to deal with. But here it goes beyond that. One of my Bruegel colleagues, Bertin Martens, has suggested something that might possibly be in the right direction, but I don't think it's a full solution, is to distinguish between input and output use of the data.
It's fairly clear that if an artificial intelligence system were to reproduce something that's pretty close to a copyrighted work, that without payment of royalties or compensation to the rights holder in some form clearly seems to be a no-no. But somehow, at what point is using sources like that to educate the artificial intelligence, how wrong is that and under what circumstances? I don't have a good answer to that. I think we're going to need some serious thought on this. As far as the question about IPRED and collective rights and other rights, fundamental rights, I'd actually like to remind you of one of the very first slides here, which is actually about the first and second recitals in IPRED itself, which talks about the need to ensure legitimate compensation for rights holders while preserving these various fundamental rights, including privacy.
But there are many fundamental rights there, and I think those can all be taken into account. This is actually one area, and here again, I'm a bit more interventionist, and I'm not less interventionist, by the way, than Professor Sikorski on this. I think that rebuttable presumption is a good idea. But fundamentally, the proportionality test within IPRED is probably exactly the right place to take that on board. That's really the kind of trade-offs that proportionality was meant to address, but can't address when it's never implemented.
As far as the third question, Madam Chair, I'm not really sure I got the drift of it. I caught a bit about subsidiarity, but it's not my German, maybe it just went by me a little too quickly, so I'm not exactly sure what you were asking there. If the question was, should we be waiting to see how the UPC evolves, there I'm not an expert on UPC by any means, but I would tend in the same direction as Professor Leistner, that maybe it's still a little too early.
Radosław Sikorski
I'll particularly address the third one, but I will try to do some comments as to the first and the second where I feel less of an expert. I think there are different problems. I mean, generally, the way I look at IP is that at the end of the day, it should produce an environment that helps innovation and creativity. That is my basic, very basic assumption, that is probably what all of us would agree upon. But when it comes to what that means, that of course creates a lot of individual questions and a lot of individual problems.
But that also means that IP problems can be resolved at various layers. One of them is at the layer of what is protected, then at the layer of the rights and exceptions, and then at the layer of enforcement, of course. When I think about AI issues in copyright mostly, then I think that it's less of a problem at the enforcement level these days. But I think, as Professor Leistner observed, this is where we should more look to the substantive law right now.
And I think that of course this question of remuneration of right holders and the scope of text and data mining exception, how we go forward with that, maintaining competitiveness of Europe vis-à-vis the world today is absolutely crucial. So on the one hand, I do see room for taking into the room for considering the interest of the right holders, of course, but on the other hand, I do feel that this is a race where we as Europeans must be in and that something that we cannot lose and we cannot be dependent on all the others around us. So that is a question that I think considers right holders, but it considers many other issues that are of geopolitical nature and I think that this is we should be concerned about it. I do think that mostly these are issues to be addressed at substantive law level. Of course, there are particular questions related to disputes that will probably arise over content created with the assistance of AI, for example, and whether the old system of presumptions of authorship that we have should stay in place.
But these are more technical questions again. I think that still probably the level of substantive law is where these problems fall. Now, the second question was a more general question about protecting right holders, preserving right holders' rights and other fundamental rights. I have a more general comment on IPRED. I think it's a generally it's a good piece of legislation and I think it follows the TRIPS Agreement, probably the last time that in the world over 190 countries sat together and were able to agree on something, probably not possible today, but I think it is very well balanced when it comes to protection of intellectual property.
And I think it allows in sectors where speedy response is needed, where immediate response is needed to stop the rise of damages, it allows us to act. But it also allows to address the problems that are faced by certain sectors like the ICT, like telecommunication, like consumer electronics, where the room for flexibility is ample and where that flexibility is very much required and we need that to support our industries in the European Union and consumer and further consumer interests as well. So I think that what I would say is it is sufficient it is capable of protecting right holders' rights. I do agree it's capable of addressing again at various at various layers various fundamental rights. This is done at substantive law again and again at protectability criteria at really various layers of IP.
And I think it is it is also at at enforcement level it is capable of addressing that balance. Edwards-Marrow case mentioned by my colleagues a number of times here is an excellent example. As for the UPC, I do I am slightly more concerned and probably less eager to wait. That is that is what I would would say. Now why?
I think that basically the UPC system is designed in a certain way. Now the UPC is selling its jurisdiction, which I understand.
By the way, I do think it's a very professional court and the way it has been built over a short period of time is very impressive and no doubt about it, credit must be due here to those who run that institution. However, I think it is by definition and by design a very patent-friendly institution. It's really the cases that will flow there are the cases that are brought by the patent holders. They decide. So the UPC, I think, has a tendency to be more patent-friendly than other courts.
And I think that at the European Union level, we should have some control over how innovation and patent policy is implemented by UPC, which is a court common to the member states. It is a European Union court. I think that UPC has given us, for example, when it comes to patent remedies, so far has given us something in Edwards and Meril case, but it has also given us a lot of skepticism when it comes to remedies in other areas. And some of the cases that I've mentioned speak to that point of view. So I think that with the legislation that we have right now, I don't think we will be able to exert certain influence over the practice of the UPC.
I think it will stay where it is, that is being in some respects overly patent-friendly. That is my opinion and that is why I do advocate a slightly more interventionist approach, but one that is, I try to be cautious still. I do advocate that approach only in respect of limited scenarios where I think that there is a lot of evidence and where I think that there is a lot of consensus also at the academic level and in the business circles. And with that I would finish. Thank you.
Marion Walsmann
Vielen herzlichen Dank den Experten, einen besonders herzlichen Dank, dass Sie uns so differenziert auch uns ins Bild gesetzt haben und auch auseinandergesetzt haben die Inhalte. Wir haben jetzt die Europäische Kommission, der guten Ordnung halber ist vertreten Herr Moment, Deniss Domborvs, leitender Experte in der DG GROW, Intellectual Property, und wenn Sie intervenieren möchten, hätten Sie für zwei Minuten die Möglichkeit noch auch zu sprechen. Bitte schön.
Deniss Domborvs
Many thanks, Madam Chair, for inviting us to this meeting and also for giving me the floor right now. Thank you as well to the speakers for their extremely detailed views on the topics of IPRED, UPC and others. As you have seen, the study that we recently published on the application of IPRED in the first place confirms, and I was glad to hear that also from some of the speakers, that globally speaking, it is still fit for purpose. It has established a harmonized framework for IP enforcement and it is applied daily by courts across the EU, so thereby contributing to legal certainty and ensuring an efficient IP enforcement throughout the internal market. However, it is true that the study has identified challenges.
We were already aware of them. This is one of the reasons why we conducted that study, particularly in relation to proportionality.
However, these challenges result less from the text and the wording of the directive than from its application, its actual application by courts, which may vary across EU countries. And the study, as you have seen, concluded that addressing these divergences would require more dialogue with EU countries, judicial cooperation, and other exchanges of best practices. Of course, we are ready to further engage with all stakeholders concerned to gather input and expertise. At this stage, it is true that for the moment again, we are not ready to propose to reopen the IPRED directive, which might be to some extent a sort of a Pandora's box. And in addition to that, as it was mentioned many times, it is not certain, and I know proportionality is not the only issue, but talking about proportionality, it is not certain that even more detailed provisions would be able to totally resolve the issues that have been identified, in particular in national courts.
And before concluding, let me say a word, a few words on the UPC that was mentioned many times. And I think that indeed it plays a significant role as far as patents are concerned, of course. Let's not forget that first, the UPC is an international court by design, and so in each panel you have judges from different nationalities, which already provides some help, if I can say, in ensuring that traditions from different member states are taken into account and may balance out each other. In addition, in the long term, and if we talk about European patents, I will not talk here about national patents, but regarding European patents, in the long term, the UPC will have exclusive competence for them. And so no more patent cases, again except those relating to national patents, will be decided by national courts.
So considering that the UPC, I would say, seems to be on the right path, at least regarding proportionality provisionally, and indeed we have seen many cases in which injunctions have been denied by the UPC, for example because it was not convinced that the patent was valid, etc. Well, assuming that the UPC is on the right path, and certainly we will see further evolution in the coming years, now that we have many cases reaching the Court of Appeal, etc. Well, I think there is hope for better proportionality as regards patents in the EU. But anyway, we, as usual, we will work on an evidence-based and certainly not listen well to anecdotal evidence. This is why this study is one piece of evidence, but certainly it is not the end of the story.
On the contrary, as it was mentioned, I think, by one of the speakers, it is rather a starting point. And again, we are continuously reflecting, monitoring what happens both in national courts, in the UPC, etc., and reflecting on what can be done either at a legislative or at a non-legislative level.
And thank you for your attention.
Marion Walsmann
Ja, herzlichen Dank. Meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren, damit ist der Workshop zur IPRED-Richtlinie für heute geschlossen. Und ich darf noch mal herzlich bei allen mich bedanken, die daran teilgenommen haben. Und wir kommen jetzt unverzüglich, weil wir schon ein bisschen Verspätung haben, zum Tagesordnungspunkt 23 unserer Tagesordnung. Und dort ist die Vorstellung des EFRAG-Arbeitsplanes 2026 gefragt.
Und ich begrüße zu diesem Tagesordnungspunkt Frau Slomp, CEO der EFRAG, Herrn Jaspar, den Präsidenten des EFRAG-Verwaltungsrats. Ich würde Sie trotzdem bitten, leise den Raum zu verlassen und Ihre Gespräche draußen fortzusetzen. Das gebietet die Höflichkeit gegenüber den nächsten Rednern. Ich begrüße Frau Lopatta, Vorsitzende des EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board, und Frau Del Prete, Vorsitzende der EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Technical Expert Group. Und sobald, meine Damen und Herren, ich bitte Sie, den Raum zu verlassen, die nicht mehr zum Tagesordnungspunkt 23 teilnehmen, und bitte um entsprechende Ruhe, damit wir die EFRAG-Vertreter auch anhören können.
Ich erteile zunächst Frau Kerstin Lopatta und Herrn Benoit Jaspar das Wort für insgesamt, Sie teilen das bitte individuell auf, für 15 Minuten das Wort. Und jetzt müssen wir auch ein bisschen disziplinierter sein, weil als nächster Punkt dann die Immunitäten dran sind und da sind wir etwas in terminliche Zwänge geraten. Ich bitte um Verständnis dafür, aber ich glaube, wir haben ausreichend Zeit. Bitte schön.
Benoit Jaspar
Very nice to meet you all. We are extremely grateful to be here and to meet you again. So I have the honor to come here since two, three years and believe me, it's very important to us. You have heard I'm here with Professor Lopatta. She's our new chair of the, chairwoman of the Sustainability Reporting Board.
I'm also with Mrs. Chiara Del Prete, the chair of our Technical Expert Group, and Mrs. Saskia Slomp, the CEO of EFRAG. I know we have only 15 minutes, so I will be extremely short. Before giving the floor to my colleague Professor Lopatta, I have just a message for you. We are extremely grateful also for your effort to help us with this preparatory action you have developed for us. So that's great and you know EFRAG is not a rich organization.
The problem is that since a few days we know that DG Budget for whatever reason has considered that we were not an A priority anymore but a C priority. So for us it's a huge issue because it means that mid-2027 we have probably to, because lack of money, to ask people to leave the organization. So that's a very serious issue. That's the only thing I will tell you. So thank you for your support, but we have this problem.
So I open the floor to Professor Lopatta to navigate you through the EFRAG work program for sustainability 2026. Thank you very much.
Kerstin Lopatta
Yes, thank you Benoit and thanks Madam Chair. I will walk you through our work plan here for 2026. And in this work plan we are focusing, or when we developed the work plan, we focused on the following areas. First, and that is my first bullet point here on the slide, it's more related to the work that happened in the past, I would say. So we focus on implementation of the revised CSRD framework as well as supporting the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and the voluntary standard adoption.
The second part we had in mind when we developed the work plan is more related...
So we focus on implementation of the revised CSRD framework as well as supporting the European sustainability reporting standards and the voluntary standard adoption. The second part we had in mind when we developed the work plan is more related to the strategic priorities of EFRAG, which means it includes standard setting of course as well as interoperability and the digitalization. And the third area we have been focusing on are more related to the EFRAG goals, which means we have to balance the usability of standards, the burden reduction and legal certainty while also aligning with international sustainability reporting initiatives. And based on that we developed the following core work streams and deliverables and I go here from left to right. So first of all you see we are working on ESRS for non-EU groups and we call them the N-ESRS standards.
So the objective is here to develop the technical advice for non-EU undertakings under the article 48 of the CSRD. Our inition is to launch a 100-day public consultation as well as a 70-day field test and we would like to start in July 2026. We of course depend here on the publication of the delegated act and our action will be to prepare of course the exposure draft, then the basis for conclusion as well as the cost-benefit analysis and we will deliver our technical advice to the EC end of January 2027. The second part here of the work stream in the middle of my slide is the SME ecosystem and the voluntary reporting. Here we have the objective to support the uptake of the voluntary sustainability reporting using the voluntary standard that hopefully will be issued as a delegated act in the mid of 2026.
Our approach is here to continue the EFRAG SME ecosystem forum that we already introduced, also the stakeholder coordination activities across all member states and we also plan to broaden the scope of activities to so-called mid-size companies. What is our action here? Well we will do surveys, we will also map of do a mapping of tools of the platforms and we move on with educational material as well as the enhancement of a digital template. My third point here on the slide is on the right-hand side, this is the implementation support and the agenda consultation and here the objective is to design a long-term implementation support framework for European sustainability reporting standards as well as for the voluntary standard. We plan the agenda consultation this year to inform the design of future implementation support and we would like to define priority topics within the consultation.
We have we call it a little bit of a calm period this year because we are also focusing on our implementation support system that we are going to enhance a little bit this year. We will put focus on issues that have been discussed over the course of the last year, here to mention the anticipated financial effects and we also do a so-called state of play report, that means we are checking on how the practice for the European sustainability reporting standards will work.
Moving on with our work plan here on my next slide. That is here on the left-hand side, that's the digitalization and the ESRS knowledge hub. Here the objective is to implement and maintain the digital portal that we developed and that we identified in the CSRD. We will do update on XBRL taxonomy and as well as XLS requirement list, and we also further enhance the knowledge hub. We have currently roughly 15,000 users and we hope it will be more and we will stay connected here.
We also or our action will be that it will be delivered in a multilingual content and we also plan to have an AI assistant navigator. For the international interoperability, the objective is to reduce reporting fragmentation as well as support global convergence. And as we did in the past, we will also do in the future, so that means we will respond to other standard setters, in case here the ISSB or the SASB standards, GRI as well as GHG protocol in their consultations as priorities and others as per scope. What we also do is after the delegated act, we will update our interoperability mappings and strengthen our technical engagement. Last but not least here on the right-hand side, education and capacity building.
So here the objective is to support consistent and high-quality European sustainability reporting standards as well as voluntary standard application across our member states. That means we move on with developing educational materials, videos and further guidance, and we build here on structured training content integrated into the European sustainability reporting knowledge hub. And I also have here on my next slide the timeline for our planned public consultations. So I mentioned already the NESRS exposure draft, we plan that for mid-July again depending on the delegated act publication, and we tend to have 100 days. For our comment letters that I already mentioned in the international interoperability phase, we have issued a draft comment letter or we issue a draft comment letter as soon as the relevant exposure draft is published and we have a minimum of 30 days of consultation.
We also do workshops with our stakeholders next to our public consultations. Then we have a list of ESRS requirements in XLS and XBRL taxonomy. We also have a tentative start here for mid-July planned and here the consultation period will be 90 to 60 days, but that have to be confirmed. And we also have the consultation agenda that we plan for EFRAG this year. We will start in July and it will be open until October.
And with that I thank you so much for your attention and we are happy to take any questions.
Marion Walsmann
Ganz ganz herzlichen Dank für diese Vortrag und auch die Slides, die Sie uns mitgebracht haben. Und ich gebe das Wort nun an die Kommission, die heute von Herrn Thomas Dodd, Teamleiter und leitender Experte für unternehmerische Nachhaltigkeit und Transparenz in der GD FISMA vertreten wird. Sie haben das Wort für fünf Minuten, bitteschön.
Speaker 14
Thank chair. Um, firstly allow us please to pay tribute to the staff of EFRAG and the different people contributing to EFRAG's work. Very appropriate. Um, for the work they have done to prepare the proposal to revise and simplify the European sustainability reporting standards. It was an extraordinarily challenging task technically to be carried out under extreme time pressure, um, and EFRAG delivered on time, including having run a public consultation and providing detailed cost estimates, and I think we we should all be very grateful for that.
It is not the exact topic of this meeting, but please, um, allow me to say a word about the adoption of the two pending delegated acts, one indeed for the revision of the European sustainability reporting standards and the second delegated act for the new voluntary reporting standard. We will adopt both delegated acts as soon as possible, at which point they will come of course to the Parliament and be sent to the Council for no objection. In fact, tonight our short public consultation on the draft final version of both delegated acts ends, so we have a very intensive, uh, period of days and and few weeks afterwards to assess comments and prepare the final version for adoption. On the EFRAG 2026, um, work program, I can keep I think our comments very short. Firstly though, apologize for consulting the Parliament and this committee later in the year than we would have liked.
Um, that delay is mainly a result of the omnibus initiative. Um, we think that it's understandable that of course operational and financial planning, um, had to wait until there was clarity about what the omnibus regime, the new omnibus regime would look like and what the new expectations would be for EFRAG and it was only at that point that serious planning and thinking could begin. Um, I will not repeat of course what Kerstin Lopatta has explained regarding EFRAG's work program. I think it is suffice to say at this point, um, that we support the content of that work program for 2026 and the priorities that it represents. Thank you.
Marion Walsmann
Vielen Dank. Jetzt besteht die Möglichkeit für die Mitglieder des Ausschusses an der Debatte teilzunehmen mit jeweils maximal zwei Minuten. Wird das Wort gewünscht? Das sieht aus, Axel, bitte schön.
Axel Voss
Ja, vielen Dank, ich hoffe ich komme mit den zwei Minuten hin. Möchte mich erstmal ganz herzlich bedanken bei der Frau Lopatta für die Vorstellung des Arbeitsprogramms und bei der Kommission in der Begleitung. Meins ist eigentlich, ich sag mal so eine Frage mit Botschaften verbunden, die ich Ihnen gerne mit auf den Weg geben möchte. Also ganz übergeordnet würde ich sagen, wird EFRAG mal in seinem Arbeitsprogramm 2026 die Chance nutzen, eben nicht nur bei der Sustainability Reporting Standards das zu verschlanken, sondern eben auch eine echte Bestandsaufnahme auch der europäischen Berichtspflichten hier mal vorzunehmen. Oder sind wir weiter mit dieser Gefahr sozusagen, dass Unternehmen sowohl bei der CSRD einerseits entlastet werden, die gleichen Informationen aber weiterhin über andere sektorale Rechtsakte berichten müssen.
Das wäre nicht hilfreich in dem Sinne. Deshalb würde ich da eben mal sagen, also aus meiner Sicht die wichtigsten oder oder die größten Probleme, die wir zurzeit dort haben, dass wir zu viele Datenpunkte abfragen, dass wir möglicherweise eine überkomplexe doppelte Wesentlichkeitsanalyse haben, die Belastung der Lieferketten sehen oder eben auch eine mangelnde Priorisierung und einhergehend mit Unsicherheit durch laufende Veränderungen. Also deshalb ist eben so ein bisschen diese Frage oder die Botschaft, können wir mit konsequenten Reduktionen der Pflichtdatenpunkte ausgehen, weil unser Mandat steht ja hier so ein bisschen unter der Überschrift: Unsere Wirtschaft muss wettbewerbsfähig werden und da würde das natürlich auch zu beitragen. Dann zweiter Aspekt: Report once, use many times, ob wir diesen Weg gehen, dass die Unternehmen nur einmal die Daten erfassen müssen und dann mehrfach genutzt werden. Vielleicht nicht jede theoretisch denkbare Information sollte auch berichtet werden, also eine strikte Anwendung des Wesentlichkeitsprinzips, welches wir auch glaube ich in diese Richtung uns entwickeln sollten.
Und dann natürlich Schutz der KMUs in den Lieferketten, welche Daten sollten große Unternehmen von kleinen überhaupt verlangen dürfen, wenn es überhaupt noch in diese Richtung dann geht. Und dann glaube ich in der Tat mehr Standardisierung, digitale Vorlagen glaube ich können hier helfen und die Stabilität statt ständiger Nachbesserung, also Kontinuität, dass man hier Planungssicherheit erzeugt. Das wären also die Wünsche verbunden mit den Fragen, ob wir uns in eine solche Richtung entwickeln. Vielen Dank.
Marion Walsmann
Herzlichen Dank und jetzt hat sich Herr Kollege Mantovani zu Wort gemeldet, ebenfalls für zwei Minuten.
Mario Mantovani
Sì, grazie presidente, anch'io ringrazio per la presentazione e EFRAG ha svolto un importante lavoro sugli standard volontari di rendicontazione, in particolare per la piccola e media impresa. È il frutto di un'ampia consultazione degli stakeholder. Tuttavia, l'atto delegato della Commissione, rispetto alla quale si sta chiudendo proprio in queste ore la consultazione, presenta delle differenze significative rispetto agli standard consegnati da EFRAG alla Commissione stessa. I progressi sono importanti, ma l'efficacia di standard come quello sulla rendicontazione non finanziaria, per esempio, dipende in larga misura dalla certezza giuridica. Le imprese devono poter contare su un quadro stabile per pianificare gli investimenti necessari alla propria compliance e le modifiche allo standard non aiutano.
Come intende muoversi EFRAG rispetto a questa situazione? Inoltre, e chiudo, ritiene che la mappatura delle iniziative e delle piattaforme, oltre al confronto nello SME Forum, possano essere usati anche per garantire una miglior diffusione di un unico standard contro l'eventualità che istituti di credito o grandi imprese impongano disclosure diverse ed eterogenee sui loro piccoli fornitori? Questa è un'altra domanda. Grazie.
Marion Walsmann
Ganz herzlichen Dank für die Fragestellung und jetzt gebe ich das Wort zurück zur EFRAG für die Beantwortung der Fragen.
Sie entscheiden bitte selbst, wer das vornehmen möchte und jeweils für drei Minuten bitte.
Kerstin Lopatta
Ja, vielen Dank Frau Vorsitzende. Ich werde auf die Fragen von Herrn Voss antworten. Also vielen Dank für Ihre Vorschläge. Sie haben ja gesagt, beim ersten die Chance nutzen zum Verschlanken und eine Bestandsaufnahme machen, keine weiteren Informationen über weitere Datenpunkte. Das ist ja genau das, was wir vorgesehen haben.
Wir haben die komplexe Wesentlichkeitsanalyse auf jeden Fall reduziert. Also haben da Vereinfachungen vorgenommen. Das war einer unserer Ansatzpunkte im Rahmen der Simplifizierung. Also das ist geschehen. Nichtsdestotrotz ist bleibt sie halt bestehen, die doppelte Wesentlichkeitsanalyse, aber wir haben das konsequent reduziert.
Dann haben Sie gesagt, Report Once, Use Many Times. Auch hier ist der Ansatz gerade ja beim Voluntary Standard zumindest war das eins der Ziele, dass Unternehmen jetzt bis 1000 Mitarbeitende eben diesen Voluntary Standard nutzen sollen. Und wir haben nach wie vor den Value Chain Cap. Also hier soll ja dem Punkt Rechnung getragen werden, dass die KMUs geschützt werden und nicht mehr reporten. Ich denke, es wird sich jetzt zeigen.
Also ich glaube, dieses ganze Konstrukt, was Sie genannt haben, wenn wir die Möglichkeit haben, die Standards jetzt auch erstmal für eine Zeit lang anzuwenden oder nicht wir, sondern die Unternehmen die Standards anzuwenden. Und ich denke, diese Bestandsaufnahme wird dann nochmal wichtig vielleicht nach drei Jahren ungefähr. Und ich denke aber Konsistenz und jetzt Anwendung der Standards ist das Wichtige. Sie haben dann noch den Knowledge Hub angesprochen, digitale Vorlagen. Daran arbeiten wir.
Also wir haben auch jetzt wieder die Liste der Datenpunkte, die wir herausgeben werden, wenn der Delegated Act dann letztendlich verabschiedet ist. Und ich denke, damit haben wir dann Planungssicherheit zumindest streben wir das an. Ja, vielen Dank dafür und damit gebe ich das Wort an Frau Del Prete.
Chiara Del Prete
Grazie e rispondo alla domanda dell'onorevole Mantovani. Effettivamente sembra esserci stato un rallentamento in ragione dell'incertezza normativa legata all'Omnibus nel processo virtuoso che cominciavamo a vedere di adozione dello standard volontario anche da parte degli utilizzatori, quindi capofiliera, banche, eccetera. C'è stato sicuramente un rallentamento e la certezza normativa che adesso abbiamo con l'Omnibus e con questo atto delegato che si appresta ad essere approvato dovrebbe metterci nelle condizioni, dovrebbe mettere tutti nelle condizioni di ripartire di buona lena. Allora relativamente ai cambiamenti che sono stati fatti nell'atto delegato, rispecchiano i cambiamenti fatti da EFRAG negli Simplified ESRS. Quindi è un po' un aggiustamento tecnico che occorreva fare, un'ulteriore conseguenza dell'Omnibus.
Ci sono poi anche dei cambiamenti a livello del funzionamento del Value Chain Cap che sono frutto più di una decisione, diciamo, più di direzione da parte della Commissione. Concludo dicendo che sicuramente questa mappatura di iniziative e le piattaforme hanno come proprio obiettivo di portare un circolo virtuoso verso l'adozione dello standard invece di multipli questionari. Ed è incoraggiante vedere che l'EBA nelle linee guida del 2026 ha indicato il nostro standard come un punto di riferimento per le banche.
Quindi diciamo che il nostro obiettivo continuando il lavoro dell'ecosistema ed è qui importante anche che siamo messi nelle condizioni di poterlo continuare e un po' come diceva il dottor Gaspar all'inizio è proprio questo di continuare il lavoro per far emergere gli incentivi a discontinuare i vari questionari e ad adottare il nostro standard al posto dei questionari.
Marion Walsmann
Herzlichen Dank. Ich würde jetzt das Wort noch einmal an die Kommission geben, wenn Sie wünschen dort auch zu antworten.
Speaker 14
Thank you chair very briefly on the number of data points we are completely behind the drive to reduce the number of data points. Indeed the proposal that our colleagues from EFRAG have put on our table reduces the number of mandatory data points by over 60% and the total number of data points if you include some voluntary ones by over 70%. So by any measure that is a very significant reduction. There does become a point when further reducing data points is no longer a positive exercise because we do need to retain or make sure that we are still achieving the policy objectives that the co-legislators have set out for the directive. And that requires the standards to nevertheless have a certain minimal level of rigor and degree of comprehensive coverage of issues.
So at some point you cannot continue forever to reduce data points because you're left with something that is meaningless. We are also fully behind the drive to protect smaller companies in value chains and of course the Parliament together with the Council has recently approved the new omnibus regime that includes a very significant new so-called value chain cap so to cap the information that companies subject to the mandatory reporting requirements can ask from companies in their value chains. And in the draft version of the standards that we have published for consultation we have in that regime we have included additional protections for the smallest companies so for companies with 10 employees or less. One last comment about legal certainty. I suppose there is an underlying reality here that we cannot change the legal framework without at least for a period of time creating some legal uncertainty.
It's impossible. It's impossible. The trick and the responsibility on us all is to keep that period of time as short as possible. And that's why we are hoping very much to adopt the revised delegated acts as quickly as possible so that companies have the certainty and the clarity that they need and that we want them to have. Thank you.
Marion Walsmann
Ein ganz ganz herzlichen Dank den Vertreterinnen und Vertretern der EFRAG. Jetzt ist es wieder hell, jetzt sehe ich Sie besonders gut. Und natürlich auch der Kommission für Ihre heutige Anwesenheit, auch für Ihre Präsentation. Wir wünschen Ihnen weiterhin viel Erfolg und auch ein gutes Gelingen bei der Abarbeitung des Arbeitsplanes.
Sie haben sich viel vorgenommen und da gehört viel Kraft dazu. Ganz, ganz herzlichen Dank. Und damit, auch mit Ihrer Hilfe, haben wir auch den Zeitverlust wieder eingearbeitet. Und ich würde Ihnen jetzt folgendes vorschlagen, dass ich den Tagesordnungspunkt 23 schon eröffne, damit unsere Mitarbeiterinnen und unsere Assistenten die Vertraulichkeit schon herstellen können. Denn es geht um den Antrag auf Aufhebung einer Immunität.
Und dazu müssen wir Vertraulichkeit herstellen. Die können wir jetzt herstellen, wenn der Tagesordnungspunkt geöffnet ist. Und wir treffen uns pünktlich um 17:00 Uhr zur Fortsetzung der Sitzung.
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