Belgians issue warning over EU patent
26 July 2010
Emma Barraclough, London
“In a meeting chaired by the Belgian presidency of the EU, member states have clashed on the languages to be used to file the proposed Community patent,” reported Managing IP in 2001. Nine years on, can the Belgians break the latest impasse?
If so, the Belgium government, which once again holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, may finally secure consensus over the Commission’s proposals for a single European patent, now known as the EU patent.
Last month, officials from the Commission put forward a language regime designed to break the decades-long deadlock, suggesting that EU patents will be examined and granted in either English, French or German, with automatic translations into all of the remaining official languages of the EU.
Now officials from the Belgium government are working with the Commission to convince member states of its merits.
“We really believe that this...
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