WRITTEN QUESTION E-1630/97 by Jean-Antoine Giansily (UPE) to the Commission (14 May 1997)

Subject: The future of patents in Europe

The translation of European patents is a general problem which affects all the EU countries. The European Patent Office (EPO) is calling for the abolition of the requirement for European patents to be translated in order to reduce the cost thereof, since translation (which represents between 20 and 25% of the total cost) is too expensive. According to the EPO, this will help to ensure greater protection for innovations in Europe. Although the question of costs is undoubtedly an important one it is by no means crucial and it does not at first sight seem unreasonable that a patent holder should be required to bear certain costs as a quid pro quo for his monopoly.

Does the Commission not think that one way of helping to reduce the cost of patents without doing away with translations altogether would be to set up some kind of mechanism for cutting down the length of the texts to be translated since this, combined with technical progress in computer-aided translation, ought to result in a substantial reduction in the cost of having patents translated?

Given the current make-up of the European Union and in view of prospective further waves of enlargement, does the Commission not also consider that the most realistic option, from the point of view of patent translation costs, efficiency and the cultural reality of modern Europe, would be for patents to be translated into three languages: English, for the benefit of the Anglo-Saxon countries (both inside and outside Europe) and/or the Nordic countries; French, for the benefit of countries with a Latin-based language and culture and also certain Eastern European countries such as Romania and Bulgaria (not to mention the 50 French-speaking countries in the world, which have a combined population of between 450 and 500 million people); and German, for the benefit of countries with a Germanic language and culture and also those (mainly in Central Europe) in which German serves as a lingua franca?

Another reason for supporting this proposal is the fact that the three languages in question are the ones spoken by the three countries of the European Union with the largest populations.

Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission (10 June 1997)

The Commission would like first of all to point out that the European Patent Office is an intergovernmental organization set up by the Munich Convention on the European Patent of 1973, to which all the Member States are contracting parties, but not the Community as such. The Community sits as an observer on the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organization but does not have the right to vote.

The Commission shares the Honourable Member's view about the need to reduce the costs of translating a European patent.

As part of the consultations which followed the adoption of the Green Paper on innovation in 1995 ((COM(95) 688 final. )), the Commission received many comments which stressed that the cost of the European patent was currently very high and constituted an obstacle to the promotion of innovation and to the competitiveness of European industry, in particular for small and medium-sized firms. It also obliged firms to limit the number of Member States in which they protect their inventions, which could have repercussions on the functioning of the single market and the conditions of competition.

Users of the patents system have emphasized that a very considerable portion of the total cost of obtaining and renewing a European patent (37% or, on average, DM 22 500 per patent) is due to the current requirement that the entire patent must be translated into all the languages of the contracting States chosen. In addition, the need for translations is sometimes questioned, since the rate of consultation by firms of the translations produced is invariably very low.

The Commission is concerned at this situation and wants a balanced solution to be found to the problem, with due regard being paid to the equality of all the languages of the Community.

Various solutions have recently been proposed by the European Patent Office and are currently being discussed within the Administrative Council of the Organization. The idea underlying these various proposals does not consist in discriminating between the languages of publication of the European patents granted but in significantly reducing the volume of documents to be translated into all the languages. According to certain estimates, such solutions could reduce the cost of translating the European patent by as much as 80%.

The Commission can only encourage the signatory States to the Munich Convention to take a decision as soon as possible within the framework of the European Patent Organization.

Given the importance of the patent for the process of innovation in Europe, the Commission will this year publish a Green Paper on the Community patent and the patent system in Europe. The aim is to determine the need for new Community initiatives in the patents field and, if such a need is felt, to suggest what they should consist of. The Commission will decide what action to take when the interests concerned, which will include Parliament, have been consulted. The problem of translation will also be discussed in the Green Paper.