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Friday, April 25, 2008

EU Community Patent: Machine Translations Ante Portas?

From Mr Nikki Tait in

FT.com:

"[...] Efforts to break the logjam over a so-called 'community patent' - a single intellectual property right which would give a holder protection in all 27 EU countries - have gathered pace in recent months and are being pursued by the current Slovenian presidency. [...]

The last effort to launch a community patent had to be abandoned in 2003, because countries were unable to agree on a language regime for the new IP right.

But under proposals being hammered out in Brussels, officials hope to offer countries the option of machine-based translation, which could convert a patent into all 23 official EU languages for minimal cost in a matter of minutes.

Officials say that this would cost only a few million euros to set up, and allow equal treatment for all languages.

Such translations would be for information purposes and would not be legally binding, and most litigation would be conducted in either French, German or English. However, officials claim that only about 1 per cent of patents are ever challenged. [...]"

Well, it was widely expected that during the French EU Presidency after July 01, 2008, important things would happen.

But those machine translations ...

I am still sceptical.

See also

Mr Joff Wild in the IAM Blog from where I got the link.

[UPDATE 2008-04-30] See Official

Document 8928/08 issued by the Slovenian EU Presidency and addressed to the Working Party on Intellectual Property (Patents) which will

discuss it on May 15, 2008. Tt is titled "Towards a Community patent - Translation arrangements and distribution of fees" and goes further into the details.

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Patents

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A nice example:

Original:
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdes?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO0231370&F=0&QPN=WO0231370

Falsification in the German "translation"

http://www.worldlingo.com/wl/epo/epo.html?SEED=WO0231370&SEED_FORMAT=E&ACTION=Description&OPS=ops.espacenet.com&LOCALE=en_EP&TRGLANG=DE&T=1

Fahren Sie ruhig mit Übersetzung!
Das fangen Sie von der Erfindung auf.

No further comment.

Can anybody send this example to the polticians, please.

I am German, I do not dare.

# posted by

Rainer : 28 April, 2008 13:59

BLOGROLL

Please read the Disclaimer & About This Website (Pflichtangaben gemäss TDG) section. Feel free to contact PA Axel H Horns via e-mail horns@ipjur.com. BEWARE: DO NOT SEND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION UNENCRYPTED VIA E-MAIL. USE OF ENCRYPTION SOFTWARE IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. PA AXEL H HORNS IS PROVIDING SUPPORT FOR ENCRYPTED E-MAIL MESSAGES USING PGP OR PGP COMPATIBLE FORMATS. THE PGP PUBLIC KEY FOR PA AXEL H HORNS IS AVAILABLE HERE. THE GnuPG PUBLIC KEY FOR PA AXEL H HORNS IS AVAILABLE HERE. Dipl.-Phys. Axel H Horns is Patentanwalt (German Patent Attorney), European Patent Attorney as well as European Trade Mark Attorney. In particular, he is Member of:
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BLOG@IP::JUR

Patent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.

Friday, April 25, 2008

EU Community Patent: Machine Translations Ante Portas?

VPP