On Tuesday, 9 October 2007, the French Senate followed the National Assembly’s decision in approving the London Agreement on the application of Article 65 EPC which concerns the post-grant duty for patent owners of filing national translations in the process of national validation of granted patents.

The London Agreement was concluded in London on 17 October 2000 and provides that European patent proprietors will no longer need to file a translation of the specification for patents granted for an EPC member State party of the London Agreement which has an official language in common with an official language of the European Patent Office (English, French and German).

For countries which DO NOT have an official language in common with the EPO, the patent proprietors will be required to submit a full translation of the specification in the national language of these countries ONLY IF the patent is not available in the EPO language prescribed by the said countries for the purpose of this Agreement. These individual states may still require that the claims be translated into the national language.

Once the instruments of its ratification have been deposited, the London Agreement will enter into force for France over the next few months which will trigger the entry in force of the London Agreement for all the countries which have ratified it, i.e. Germany, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Slovenia. The parliaments of Sweden and Denmark have also approved the Agreement.

The entry in force of the London Agreement will considerably reduce post-grant translation costs and burden to the patent proprietors.

For further information, see:

http://www.epo.org/about-us/publications/general-information/london-agreement.html