Patent translations threatened?

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In today's issue of legalweek.com Richard Davis, a specialist patent barrister at Hogarth Chambers, writes about the European Patent Litigation Agreement.

According to the article, a centralised European patent court came a step closer at the beginning of November, following the publication of draft rules of procedure by a committee of European patents judges.

At present, the only European cooperation on patents is via the European Patent Office (EPO) based in Munich. The EPO offers a centralised procedure for the grant of Europe-wide patents. The central factor for the translation industry is, that patents which shall be effective EU-wide need to be translatated into all the official languages of the EU. Currently there are 20 official languages in the EU and 3 more gain this status at 01. January 2007. While this means enormous costs for the applicant it also means a benefit for the translation industry.

"Fairly recently, however," Davis writes, "various states signed up to the London Agreement proposing a single language should be acceptable throughout Europe; namely the language in which the patent was prosecuted, which can only be one of English, French or German. Initially, it seemed that the London Agreement was also doomed to failure due to strong opposition from the French, but it now seems there may be movement on this issue."

Patent translation has been a profitable market for major LSPs in Europe over the past years. A move toward a true European patent system, requiring only one language could in fact mean a major loss of turnover in that market.

read the article: legalweek.com