London Agreement in Force

The London Agreement significantly reduces the cost of the grant stage of a European patent by reducing the requirements for translations in many EPC contracting states. It finally entered into force on 1st May, 2008, and our clients are already seeing the benefit. For contracting states party to the London Agreement, it is no longer necessary to furnish a translation of the entire patent specification.

The current states include Germany, France and the UK, i.e. the European countries in which patent protection is sought most frequently. The Netherlands and Sweden are also popular states for national validation where significant savings are now available. A table of the EP contracting states rank-ordered by GDP and population is available for download from our website.

Germany experienced a minor hiccup in the timely ratification of the London Agreement, due to an “editorial error” in the original implementing provisions. However, according to the German Ministry of Justice, this error has been corrected, and the retroactive ratification as of 1st May 2008 will be effected in June. Thus, no harm should have been done, and we expect the relevant laws to be in place by the time this newsletter goes to press. For more information, please contact our Munich office at Munich@Jenkins.eu.