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Friday, July 14, 2006

UK: CIPA Favours English-Only Language Regime for European Patents.

From the

CIPA website:

"[...] At a hearing on future patent policy in Europe held by the EU Commission on Wednesday, 12 July, the Community Patent, which had been written off by many, once again raised its head, perhaps for the last time.

At the hearing MEP Giuseppe Gargani revealed a controversial solution proposed by the European Parliamentary Committee examining the Community Patent. The Committee suggested a single language Community Patent, the language being English. Gwilym Roberts, who attended the consultation on behalf of The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) said

'Many users of the system have observed that multiple translations are simply not necessary and that the cost outweighs the benefits of unitary protection. If those users are right then this solution put forward by the European Parliament will provide a useful and extremely cost-effective route to pan-European patent protection. It would also be in line with the Commission's goal of setting up a world-leading intellectual property rights regime across the EU. However, the proposal is likely to meet with significant resistance both from national governments and from service providers who feel that translation of the Community Patent is a necessity.' [...]"

English is the de-facto lingua franca of the modern globalised economy. Despite the fact that some other languages might perhaps count more native speakers (Chinese, Spanish, Portugiese etc.) none of such alternative languages is positioned in a way to substitute English. And, nobody today doing business on a substantial scale can avoid to be confronted with some urgent need to aquire at least a modest degree of command of the English language. Hence, English-only should be deemed sufficient for European Patents. The EU with its policy to translate each and every document into umpteen Official languages is a quite deterring example showing the swampy terrain wher you get when universally demanding localised translations. It is simply too costly, too complex and too much time-consuming.

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