Language Issues Hamper Plans for EU Patent System
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At a recent meeting of the Competitiveness Council, European Ministers acknowledged that an EU patent is essential for encouraging innovation and boosting competitiveness. There was however disagreement on the language regime set forth in an EU Commission Proposal aimed at establishing translation arrangements for a future EU patent system.
Under the proposed language regime, applicants would only be required to provide translations into one of the three official languages of the European Patent Office (i.e. English, French or German) and no further translations would be required to effect the enforcement of the patent throughout the EU.
Despite the Ministers’ disagreement, there may be some hope of salvaging plans for an EU patent system, as a “very large majority” reportedly supported a compromise put forward by the Belgian Presidency. The Belgian compromise highlighted the importance of making available high-quality machine translations into all EU languages as well as compensation for the costs of translation of a patent application drafted in an EU language other than one of the official European Patent Office languages.
There are plans to organise a Ministerial Conference in November in an attempt to reach an agreement. The current disagreement on language issues do not however bode well for future negotiations as similar language issues have hampered previous attempts to establish an EU patent system.
