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News Release from: Marks and Clerk
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 07 March 2003
European Community Patent on the horizon
An outline for a European Community Patent was finally agreed by the EU's Competitiveness Council this week, after 30 years of political wrangling.
An outline for a European Community Patent was finally agreed by the EU's Competitiveness Council this week, after 30 years of political wrangling Under the proposal, it will be possible to apply for one European Union-wide patent as an alternative to 15 national patents
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 28 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Simon Mounteney, Partner at Marks and Clerk, the UK's largest firm of patent and trade mark attorneys, comments: "This reform will make it more affordable for businesses to protect their R and D spend across the whole of the EU.
At present, the process of translating a patent into the language of every state it is to be enforced in is expensive.
Under the new system, a patent specification will be drafted in only English, French or German, leaving only the claims that define the monopoly to be translated into the 11 official European languages.
This should cut translation costs significantly".
He continued: "Whilst there will certainly be advantages to having a Community Patent, there are some drawbacks too.
For example, when a Community Patent application fails, it will fail for all of Europe.
So where a patent looks uncertain, an inventor may well be better off filing applications for different national patents in the hope of getting some, if not all of them".
"Furthermore, Europe's successful expansion eastward could doom the Community Patent.
As the number of EU member states rises to as many as 19 by 2004, the costs of translation will escalate to the point that many firms may be tempted to restrict their patent applications to only the more lucrative, larger markets".
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