Intellectual Property Law

London Agreement Patents Law to be Enacted May 2008

By IBLS Editor

?LONDON  AGREEMENT? PATENTS LAW TO BE ENACTED MAY 2008

Getting patent coverage across Europe is set to get easier and cheaper on May 1, 2008 when a new protocol called the ?London Agreement? goes into affect. The London Agreement negotiations have been ongoing for some years, and the final details hammered out October 17th, 2000. The purpose was to make getting translations of European patents easier and lessening the costs. The new rules should halve costs for UK businesses toiling to protect their intellectual property rights across all 31 European states.

The reason it took the agreement awhile to be put put into place was the French were working on their end of the details, and it took them some time to ratify it. On 26 September 2007, the French Assembly finally voted in favor of the Agreement while the French Senate approved the bill on October, 10th  2007.

According to the European Patent Office, the patent process will become extremely easy on May 1st. The EPO writes, ?One big advantage of this system is that the applicant can get a European patent by filing just one patent application in any of the three EPO official languages, in English, French or German. Another advantage is that the application is examined by a single patent office.?

The details of the agreement is for member states to waive certain requirement for translation of already granted patents into their native tongues. There is still a requirement to file translations into English, French and German under the Agreement, but considerable savings will result from skipping translation into the many official EU languages as the current law demands.

Yet, there is a significant but completely rational exception to the new rule. For countries waiving a translation of patent descriptions, such a translation into that member state?s language will be necessitated if the patent becomes subject to court proceedings in that member state. Some countries are still holding off completely embracing the Agreement. Spain and Italy are withholding support and so full translations of patents will be required there.

In 2005, there were 60,762 patent applications and 67,917 Euro-PCT applications filed with the European Patent Office. European patent applications are published 18 months after the filing date, unless a priority has been claimed, then 18 months after that.  The three official languages of the European Patent Office are English, French and German, meaning patents can be filed in any of these tongues. Patents still need to be translated into the other two languages before a European patent is granted.

For U.K. Businesses, the change is welcome indeed. Patent translations for the EU, meaning at least seven European languages on average, makes translating per application costs of over $10,000. Such a reduction will encourage companies and individuals to file more extensive EU patents for protection beyond the the UK, freeing more budget for research, development and promotions. As a result, the UK Intellectual Property Office predicts that British businesses could easily save over $20 million a year in patent translation costs.

If one examines the new law further, it becomes clear that while money is being saved, the big winner may be Patent protections and Intellectual Property (IP) itself. The less patent applications cost, the more likely inventors and companies are going to follow through and protect their inventions and IP rights. This in turn lessens the chances of an unscrupulous or even ignorantly innocent person from trespassing onto these rights.  It therefore increases the value of patents across the EU.

Considering that patent proprietors who currently want to protected their IP in all 31 member states of the EPO would need to have their European patent fully translated into 22 languages at a cost of approximately 31,000 euros, this change cannot possibly come soon enough.

Full post as published by IBLS Internet Law Blog on April 28, 2008 (boomark / email).