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EU still deadlocked on patent reform

A long-running dispute over language and translation issues continues to delay the planned creation of a low-cost pan-European patent.

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Delegates from 27 European Union (EU) countries at a meeting yesterday in Brussels failed to reach unanimous agreement on a compromise solution suggested by Belgium which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

The European commission had in July proposed that EU-wide patents be translated into English as well one of the other two working languages of the EU, French or German. European patents would then confer EU-wide legal protection without the need for further translations or validation by national patent offices.


In response to legal concerns, Belgium had suggested that companies which accidentally infringe on EU patents not translated in their native language may not be held liable for damages. Moreover, Belgium suggested that patent applicants be eligible for full compensation of required translation costs for a transitional period until high-quality machine translations become available.

But citing linguistic discrimination, Italy and Spain insisted that patents should also be translated in their own languages.

’We have left no stone unturned. Although we’ve made progress we’ve fallen short of unanimity by just a small margin,’’ the Belgian minister of economy, Vincent van Quickenborne, said in a statement.

Controversies over translation have blocked European patent reform for decades. Belgium – itself a multilingual country – has made the issue a priority of its six-month presidency. Talks will resume at two further Belgium-chaired competitive councils, on 26 November and 10 December, but policy analysts have little hope that the deadlock can be broken.

Image: Vincent van Quickenborne (right). Council of the European Union.

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