News archive - Final Element For Single EU Patent On The Way
A proposal on translation arrangements for a future EU Patent, the final element needed for a single EU Patent to become a reality, has been presented by the European Commission on July 1. Once the Single EU Patent has been implemented, innovators will be able to protect their inventions in the entire EU territory at an affordable cost.
Existing translation costs will be drastically reduce and the validation of the patent at a national level will no longer be necessary. Today, obtaining a patent in Europe costs ten times more than one in the US, which discourages research, development and innovation, and undermines Europe's competitiveness. Because of the costs involved, most of the inventors only patent their invention in a very limited number of Member States.
Translation arrangements for EU Patents
The Commission's proposal builds on the existing language regime of the EPO. The Commission proposes that EU Patents will be examined and granted in one of the official languages of the EPO - English, French or German. The granted patent will be published in this language which will be the authentic (i.e. legally binding) text. The publication will include translations of the claims into the other two EPO official languages. The claims are the section of the patent defining the scope of protection of the invention. No further translations into other languages will be required from the patent proprietor except in the case of a legal dispute concerning the EU patent. Processing costs for an EU Patent covering 27 Member States would therfor be less than € 6200, of which only 10% would be due to translations.
Accompanying measures
The Commission's proposal also sets out accompanying measures to be agreed in order to make the patent system more accessible to innovators. First, high quality machine translations of EU patents into all official languages of the EU should be made available. Inventors in Europe will therefore have better access to technical information on patents in their native language. In addition, in order to facilitate access to the EU patent for applicants from countries in the EU that have a language other than English, French or German among their official languages, inventors will have the possibility to file applications in their own language. The costs for the translation into the language of proceedings of the EPO will be eligible for reimbursement.
Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/870&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=de, as accessed on July 12, 2010.
- European Union (EU 27)
Entry created by Katarina Rohsmann on July 12, 2010
Modified on July 12, 2010
