Dear all
after the English meeting, we also had a German zoom conference
yesterday. It seems we found some way forward which I would like
to propose and summarize as followed:
our goal for first half year 2021:
we should try to use the meeting of the Admin Council in March to
push for our demands and to increase pressure on the EPO and its
Member States to move forward (to achieve a moratorium or a new
decision of the Administrative Council). In theory, the A Council
in March could ask for an extraordinary meeting of the patent law
committee and the take decision in next meeting of the A Council
end of June.
If we do not achieve this ambingous goal in In March / June our
activities at least could help us to finally speed up the decision
making till end of the year.
It is now urgent matter to sort out our tools and activities for
at least the fisrt half year.
We have the following elements to support our activities:
- the petition: We now have around 40 Organisations signing it.
We will mobilise for further support within next weeks and might
be able to present some results in March.
However, if we have more time, we could try to involve more
organisations and generate more signatures. We also could use an
event in March (around to A Council) to further mobilise
supporters.
The Umweltinstitut München will start to run the petition on its
website at beginning February. We are also in contact with WeMove
Europe and the Gene ethical Network which also might take it up
onto their websites. However, the Gene ethical Network (for
example) can not start the petition in time for the A Council
meeting in March, but (in case) would need time till June.
We are also aware that as soon as the petition is ended, it will
difficult for us to run another broader activity for mobilising
supporters.
! Therefore, we should not end the petition in March, but keep it
going till June. We should announce the deadline next week, so the
other organisations can use this information for own planning. Please
respond till end of this week.
- the report: It looks there are many interesting cases,
supporting our analysis in regard to the importance of the current
loopholes (mutation breeding and regeneration of plants from
cells).
We think we need the report) as soon as possible and should
present it to the Admin Council already in March. This would mean
we need the report ready end of February and to publish first week
of March. We would try to first present it to the German
government in a public activity, hoping they will push in the
Admin Council in March. For this purpose we also could use a first
'light version' followed by a full version later on (before or
after the A Council in March). It would be the last opportunity
for the current German government to move things ahead. Thus the
organisations in Germany think this would be important to use this
opportunity. We also could consider to approach Austrian
government in parallel.
Therefore, we will try to present first findings / first draft
(in case light version) report to the group as soon a possible and
adopt a final draft around our meeting on 25 February.
- the screaming vegetables: They can be used at the meeting of
the Admin Council in March or at a meeting with the German
government for the presentation of the report. For the
presentation of the report we could also send some of the
vegetables to Austria, Denmark or Portugal to run several
activities (handing over the report to the government) at the same
day (first week of March).
- Contacts to Member States: we are still quite active with the
German and the Austrian government. In Germany we are in
discussion about a conference next year and initiatives of the
government which might started before. In Austria we try to get a
push for change of national law. As soon as the new report is out,
we again should broaden our contacts with member states,
especially between March and June to achieve decisions in the June
meeting.
Cheers
Christoph