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I suspect a very smart move of Portugal in not acceding to the EPC before 13 December : as far as I know, there is no prohibition to acceed to the EPC 2000 again at a later time as a "new" member state (just as Norway) - there is at least 1 advantage to this strategy : the grandfather clause is invoked and all national Portugese PA's become EPA's ! Since Portugese candidate EPA's have tremendous problems passing the EQE (which is not simple anyway), this is a very rewording strategy : Portugal gets a lot of EPA's without passing any exams - why have other countries not thought about this ?? Or am I missing something here ?
 
 

 

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I'm missing something here too. Why is Portugal "smart" to get a whole load of Portugese grandfathered onto the EPA Register? They will have no source of income but will have to stump up the annual fee for staying on the Register. How many of those 400+ Turkish people who went on to the EPA Register are still paying their annual regn fees. Looking back, were they "smart"?
 
 

 

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A reader of this Blog has passed this snippet of information to me:

"> The Portuguese Government has already taken the measures necessary for
> ratifying the EPC 2000.
>
> It should be approved by the Portuguese Parliament and published in
> the Official Journal by the end of this month.
>
> As far as I have been informed by the Industrial Property Office, the
> President of the Republic should sign the document on about 10th
> December, which will be communicate this to Munich on around the 12th."