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Global Marketplace

www.read-tpt.com

March

2013

65

the well and assign percentages of fault to the companies

involved was scheduled to start 25 February in US District

Court in New Orleans.

BP had not yet reported for 2012 at press time, but in

2011 the company posted profits of more than $25bn.

For Transocean, that year brought a loss of about $5.7bn,

attributed in part to the costs of litigation resulting from the

sinking of the Deepwater Horizon.

In brief . . .

A uniform patent system has been

adopted for Europe. If it goes

into effect as expected by early 2014,

it would be a step toward a remedy

for the country-by-country approach

whose time and costs have long been

considered an impediment to innovation

across the European Union. Meeting

in Strasbourg on 11 December, the

European Parliament voted 484 to 164

to pass the key plank of the new patent

system. Nation-by-nation vetting of the

new system was set for February, when

governments were expected to sign a

treaty creating special patent courts.

The new system would supplement the

patchwork of EU patent rules. Under

the current system, a ruling in one of

27 countries has no automatic validity

in any other. According to the European

Commission, the executive arm of

the EU, that approach has made the

protection of inventions and innovations

in Europe 15 times more expensive than

in the US.

A new “unitary” patent granted by the

European Patent Office in Munich

would no longer need to be validated

individually in the EU countries where

protection is sought. Nor would it need

to be translated into all local languages:

English, German or French would

suffice. The cost of patent protection

should initially drop to around $8,450

from around $46,790, the EC said.

Russia is projected to surpass

Germany as the largest car market

in Europe in 2014. According to the

Association of European Businesses,

which tracks sales in an effort to

promote trade between Russia and the

European Union, Russian sales are now

approaching three million cars annually.

Russian buyers are snapping up foreign-

branded cars. The Solaris from South

Korea’s Hyundai was the best-selling

vehicle in Russia in 2011. And Hyundai;

Nissan (Japanese); and Renault (of France) all did well there

in the first 11 months of last year, with sales increases ranging

from 11 to 23 per cent.

Russia’s automobile industry weathered the financial crisis in

part through a willingness to embrace foreign manufacturers

even to the peril of homegrown brands.

In 2012 the last Volga rolled out of the Gorky automobile

factory at Nizhny Novgorod, making space for three foreign

manufacturers: General Motors, of the USA and Germany’s

Volkswagen and Mercedes.