NEWS - SEPTEMBER 2007

EPO News: France moves a step closer to ratification of the London Agreement.
On 26 September 2007 France’s Assemblée Nationale voted to adopt the London Agreement. Ratification of the agreement must now be agreed by the Senate, who are scheduled to discuss the draft law on 9 October 2007. If the Senate approves the draft law then the London Agreement will enter into force, after the deposit of France’s instrument of ratification, possibly in early 2008.

The aim of the London Agreement is to reduce the cost of European patents by reducing the translation requirements. In brief, the agreement provides that patent proprietors would no longer have to file a translation of the specification for European patents granted for an EPC member state party to the agreement and which has one of the three EPO languages (English, French or German) as an official language. With respect to contracting states party to the agreement which do not have English, French or German as an official language, a translation of the patent specification into the national language of that state would only be required if the European patent is not available in the EPO language designated by the country concerned.

As of December 2006 eleven EPC contracting states had approved the London Agreement (Denmark*, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden* and the UK). After the ratification by Germany and the United Kingdom, ratification by France would cause the entry into force of the agreement.

*Agreement approved by Parliament, date of deposit of the instrument of ratification to be decided by Government.

DESIGNS: European Community design registration system to be linked with the WIPO international registration system.
On 24 September 2007 the EU submitted to WIPO its instrument of accession to the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement on international design registrations.

Under the Geneva Act designers can obtain protection of their design in any of the contracting states through a single international design application filed at WIPO. An international registration has the same effects in each of the designated countries as if the design had been registered directly there by the national system, unless protection is refused for that country by the national Office. At present 23 countries are party to the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement (including the non-European countries Albania, Armenia, Botswana, Croatia, Egypt, Georgia, Iceland, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Namibia, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine).

The registered Community Design system, administered by the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), allows applicants to obtain a unitary design registration covering the whole of the EU territory.

As from 1 January 2008, when the accession of the EU to the WIPO international design registration system comes into force, designers established in a contracting state of the Geneva Act (e.g. Switzerland) will be able to use the international registration system also to obtain protection of their design in the EU territory under a Community Design registration.