Very good news & good work, thanks!

Hi all,

thanks a lot, our feedback in green below J.

Best,

Dagmar

Dear all,

please let me remind you to send your feedback in regard to the start of a petition until today.

Update: Christoph and I had a talk with an association of 39 family owned breweries from Germany & Austria (Die Freien Brauer). They are willing to start their own campaign against patents on beer & barley - including a petition and supported by a communication agency. And they are willing to plan long term, f.e. until the hearing of the third Carlsberg patent case on 10 May 2022. That is very good news, because they could really support our campaign from a different angle and with a very broad network – probably as well in Switzerland, Luxemburg, etc. So it would be a good opportunity to cooperate with them.

We should take a decision on that, too, and if we decide to cooperate with them, try to combine our petitions as best as possible.

We think it would be great and could imagine having the same “core text” in both petitions, so they can be counted together, but e.g. the beer people can have their own campaign text around it. It would also be great to think about how we could use the addresses for our campaigns after the beer one is over (e.g. ask them to join the NPOS newsletter or national ones, too).

We are happy to join more discussions!

Best,

Johanna

Dear all,

at our last conference call on 15 September (minutes attached) we discussed the possibility to ask for a Conference of Ministers.

Please come back to us with your feedback until the end of September (or if possible earlier)!

We want to start a petition to ask for a Conference of the Ministers of the EPO in 2022. By doing so we would switch from addressing the technical level (Representatives of the EPO Admin. Council) to addressing the political level (ministers).

We could set up a petition and possibly would then have the option to address ministers in different countries (of our member organisations) separately. We could then as well arrange for meetings to hand over the petiton.

It could as well be a good opportunity to get other organisations involved, since it would be a quite easy way to support our demands.

Article 4a (EPC) foresees a Conference of Ministers every 5 years.

In regard to the timeline we have two options:

1. Start petition in December

• We could now ask the AC to take decisions at the meeting in December, f.e. in our press release for 13 October. And we could as well launch a petition to support our opposition of the melon patent where we communicate as well our demands.
• In case the AC does not take any decisions in December, we would still have a  plan on how to hold up the pressure and only then ask for a Conference of Ministers.
• have the petition running from December to March (next AC meeting).

2. Start petition in October

• We could concentrate our efforts until the end of the year and really focus on achieving a result.
• National patent laws have to be amended anyways until the end of the year in regard to the Unitary Patent Court. So ministers are aware of the issue at the moment and this could be a good opportunity. In Austria, for example, a petition on European level would as well support the current national efforts for a change of law.
• We could start the petition after the AC meeting on 13 October and send out a separate press release.
• have the petition running from end October until December (AC meeting).

In the conference call the tendency was rather towards starting the petition in October.

Please come back to us with your feedback!

• Do you think asking for a Conference would be a good option?

Yes!

• Which would be the better timeline?

As mentioned in the call, we prefer starting in October, when exactly depends on what is feasible in terms of having petition + comms ready, but both Options are fine (13th or later). If everything is ready publishing the demand on the 13th is a great story.

• Could your organisation support the petition, for example via addressing your national minister directly / setting up a national petition?

Yes! We definitely support the petition, but would use our own tool, in a way the signatories can be added to the NPOS one for sure. If feasible we could add one national demand as well (or in the communication around it at least). But there should be a clear “European Petition” aspect.

We heard back from the ministry, that they really need 2-3 countries supporting their demands on European level, so it would be crucial that we have several countries with petitions as well, who are also willing to hand them over on national level (we can maybe discuss in a call what support would be needed on national level).

Please come back to us if you have further questions!

Best,

Johanna

Mag. Johanna ECKHARDT

Project Coordination

Tel. +43 680 21 26 343

johanna.eckhardt@no-patents-on-seeds.org

NO PATENTS ON SEEDS!

www.no-patents-on-seeds.org

www.facebook.com/nopatentsonseeds

www.twitter.com/nopatentsonseed