Following the deposit of the instrument of ratification by France at the German Federal Ministry of Justice on 19 January 2008, the much anticipated London Agreement will now come into force on 1 May 2008.

The London Agreement ushers in a new era of reduced validation costs in Europe through the waiving of the requirement for translations of granted European patents into the national languages of a number of contracting states.

The Agreement provides that countries that have an official language that is also an official language of the EPO (i.e. English, French or German) will no longer require the translation of a European patent; even if the language in which the patent is granted is not an official language of the country. So, for example, the United Kingdom will not require a translation into English if the language in which the patent is granted is German or French. This will apply to:

  • France
  • Germany
  • Luxembourg
  • Monaco
  • Switzerland/Liechtenstein
  • United Kingdom

Other countries, which don't have an official language that is also an official language of the EPO, will be able to choose one of the official languages as a "prescribed language" into which European patents will have to be translated in order to enter into force in their country. This will apply to:

  • Croatia
  • Denmark
  • Netherlands
  • Slovenia
  • Iceland
  • Latvia

Of these, Croatia, Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands will require the specification to be translated into English with the claims being translated into Croatian, Danish, Icelandic and Dutch respectively. Latvia and Slovenia have not prescribed any language and therefore no translation of the description needs to be supplied, but translation of the claims into Latvian and Slovenian will be required.

The Agreement will impact all European patents granted on or after 1 May 2008. However, in the UK and Switzerland applicants will be able to take advantage of the three-month period for filing translations with their respective patent offices. Therefore, translations of European patents will not need to be filed with the UK or Swiss patent offices for European patents granted as of 1 February 2008.

Ratification of the London Agreement by Sweden is expected to take place soon, with English being the elected language for translation of the description. Ratification is currently being discussed in Belgium.

How to save costs now

Depending on the countries in which it is desired to validate, there may be a significant cost saving in delaying the grant of any recently allowed European applications until after 1 May 2008. Such a delay can be achieved relatively easily using further processing with payment of an office fee of €210.

A full discussion of the impact of the London Agreement is given in the Winter 2007/08 issue of Howrey's IP Intelligence: Europe newsletter.

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