The London Agreement

Reducing costs of translation for granted European patents

It's a long road for inventors until they finally receive a patent for their work. And an expensive one: Development, research and documentation of a new technology demand strategic investments along the way.

But once a patent has been granted, inventors face yet another obstacle before they can fully pursue the commercial prospects of their creation internationally: the translation of the text of the European patent (called the specification) into the national language of every country in which they seek to register it.

For years, the practice has worked as follows: Once the EPO grants a European patent, national legislation treats the patent as several national patents granted in different countries. In other words, a European patent can be seen as a bundle of patents. And for a patent to be valid in a particular country, the whole patent specification needs to be translated into the language used in that country.

This creates additional costs. In fact, translation costs can add up to 40 percent of overall patent costs, with the average figure for translation at around €3 800. Depending on the technical field in which the patent has been granted, on the size of the patent and on the languages involved, costs can go substantially higher.

Translating for the sake of procedure, not the advancement of science

The most striking deficiency of this translation regime is that the translations into national languages are hardly ever consulted. And if a patent is infringed and a court case ensues - which seldom happens - the authentic text of the patent at stake before the judge is always the patent text as granted by the EPO in one of the official EPO languages (English, French or German). Meanwhile, the national translations required all over Europe remain "in the drawer."

Moreover, as patents are usually granted four or five years after the filing of the patent application, all these translations do not serve the purpose of informing about new technologies, as they occur too late.

In light of an increasingly connected European market and the rise of Europe as a knowledge economy of global significance, this state of affairs needed reform.

The solution: The London Agreement for a simplified post-grant language regime

As an effective method of cutting down post-grant translation costs, a number of key contracting states to the EPC adopted the London Agreement on 17 October 2000. But only on 1 May 2008, following ratification and accession procedures in national parliaments, did the Agreement eventually enter into force,

The main aim of the London Agreement is to reduce costs by introducing a cost-attractive post-grant translation regime for all European patents.

To this end, the states party to the agreement have agreed to waive - entirely or largely - the requirement for translations of already granted patents in their national language. States having a national language in common with one of the official languages of the EPO, such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, have dispensed entirely with translation requirements.

States having no national language in common with one of the official languages of the EPO have the right to require that a translation of the claims of the patent - which are much shorter in length - into one of their official languages be supplied. The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, for instance, thus require that the claims of the European patent be supplied in Dutch, Swedish and Danish respectively. In addition, these states require that the European patent specification be available or supplied in English.

What are the benefits of the London Agreement?

The entry into force of the Agreement marked a true breakthrough in improving the European patent system. Patent holders are spared the high costs relating to the translation of European patents:

§  Significant savings in translation costs.

§  No publication fees for translations.

§  Reduced patent attorney fees.

§  An inclusive solution - three languages instead of single-language solutions like "English only."

It is expected that further states will join the Agreement during the next years, and the overall picture which will emerge is a post-grant language regime where the claims are always available in the national language of the states where the European patent is registered, while the description is generally available in English only.