Commission presents new patent proposal

Applications for EU-wide patent could be filed in one language, Commission suggests.

The European Commission today presented a plan intended to secure agreement on the creation of a single EU-wide patent and lower costs for European innovators.

Michel Barnier, the European commissioner for the internal market, said the patent – an idea discussed for 35 years – was also needed in order to enhance legal protection.

“When we need growth and jobs, I think it’s unacceptable to have [the current] weak system for protecting innovators and innovation,” said Barnier.

He said it costs Europeans “ten times more” to file for a patent in the EU than it does in the United States.

Many small and medium-sized businesses cannot afford to patent their inventions across all 27 member states because of the translation costs involved.

The Commission said a patent validated in 13 EU countries costs as much as €20,000, of which €14,000 is spent on translating the text. In the United States, a patent costs €1,850.

Under the Commission proposal, inventors would be able to file their applications in their own language.

Once approved, the patent would need to be translated into only three of the major EU languages, French, German and English. The cost of that process would be borne by the European Patent Office (EPO), an intergovernmental body that includes all 27 EU member states plus 10 other European countries. It is tasked with examining and granting applications.

Patents could also be translated into other languages, but those versions would not be legally binding.

However, efforts to limit the number of legal languages into which a patent would be translated has long been one of the main stumbling blocks to getting a deal.

It is now, Barnier said, the “one sensitive issue remaining”.

Most aspects of the new patent system, including renewal fees, and co-operation between national patent offices, were agreed in December 2009.

Barnier said he hoped he and Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgium’s minister for enterprise and streamlining policy, can get unanimous backing for the plan over the coming months.

Belgium, which took over the rotating six-month presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers from Spain today, has made the patent one of its priorities.

Click Here: Cheap France Rugby Jersey

Spain has been opposed to the language regime because it did not include Spanish and feared its national patent office would lose business as a result of the EU patent.