EU Parliament votes to sue Commission for killing patents bill

Lawmakers in the European Parliament voted on Tuesday to pursue legal action against the European Commission for spiking a highly disputed bill to regulate the licensing of patents.

After a lawsuit was filed earlier this month to the Court of Justice of the European Union, lawmakers today voted with 334 MEPs in favor of pursuing the legal action. There were 294 votes against and 11 abstentions.

The standard essential patents (SEPs) regulation sparked a fierce lobbying war between patent holders — including Nokia, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Huawei — and the companies that license their tech, ranging from phone to carmakers.

The Parliament had agreed a position on the file but the Commission said in February that it planned to scrap its proposal to regulate the licensing of certain patents, arguing there was no “foreseeable agreement” with the Council, where negotiations had become drawn out.

The Parliament’s legal affairs committee voted earlier this month to sue the Commission. President Roberta Metsola put the lawsuit to a final plenary confirmation amid pushback from a right-wing majority.

The case can now move ahead to the EU’s top court in Luxembourg, which will have to decide whether the Commission was within its rights to scrap the proposal or whether it overstepped its powers.

“The Commission’s right to withdraw a proposal … cannot be used as a political instrument to short-circuit Parliament’s work or to enforce a deregulation agenda from above,” German Social Democrat René Repasi, who led the motion in committee, has said. “This is not in line with how the democratic processes in the European Union are meant to function.”

The Commission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.