France Slammed Over Failure To Ratify London Agreement

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

28 January 2004

The French government is coming under increasing pressure to ratify the London Agreement, which is designed to reduce patent application costs in Europe by liberalising the translation requirements. However, failure to achieve political consensus over the issue means that this is becoming increasingly unlikely.

Under the terms of the London Agreement, signed in October 2000 by France, Germany, the UK, Denmark, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Sweden, and the Netherlands, patents granted in one member country in either French, German or English will no longer need to be translated.

In order to come into force, however, the agreement must be ratified by at least eight of the original contracting member countries, which must include Germany, the UK, and France.

According to reports, Germany has begun the ratification process, and the United Kingdom is expected to follow suit in the near future, but there has been no sign of movement from the French government.

Speaking to the LMG news service at the weekend, an unnamed French government source explained that:

"We are aware of the industry's disappointment. To ratify the agreement we need to find a political consensus, but there are people in the French Parliament who are strictly opposed to ratification."

Observers have suggested that concerns over the potential loss of income to French patent professionals as a result of the less stringent translation requirements are behind the political reluctance from some quarters to ratification.

The alleged impact that the Agreement will have on the French language, given that the majority of European patents are granted in English, has also been cited as a likely sticking point.

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