The Need for Further Accessions to the London Agreement

Introduction

The full benefits of the London Agreement will only be realized if all signatories of the European Patent Convention (EPC) accede to the London Agreement on patent translations.Full accession to the Agreement will induce significant cost savings and reallocation of resources to research and development (R&D). Further accessions should increase legal security and have no negative impact on the public-notice function of patents, in particular due to the existence of safeguard clauses. For these reasons, it is imperative that as many EPC signatories as possible accede at the earliest opportunity.

The London Agreement on patent translations1 entered into force in May 2008, four months after ratification by France. Before that date, in a European patent system with 35 member States and no less than 26 different national languages, the requirement of the full patent translation in potentially all 35 States could lead to astronomic costs and inefficient allocation of resources. As such, the entering into force of the London Agreements represent a great step forward for the European patent system, given the expected impact of the Agreement on costs of patenting in Europe.

By lowering cost barriers, the London Agreement also represents a great step forward for inventors throughout the world, including from developing countries, thereby providing greater access to the patent system to inventors of countries for which the European market could prove until now to be too costly.

Until now, however, only 15 member States of the European Patent Organization (EPO) have ratified it. Full benefits of the Agreement will hence only be realized if all signatories of the European Patent Convention (“EPC”) accede to the London Agreement. In a situation of financial crisis and world wide recession, accession to the London Agreement is crucial to the community of States for the following reasons.