back to article EU ministers give approval to patent scheme

A new patent agreement covering 25 of the EU's 27 countries was given the green light by EU member states yesterday. The European Commission will now draw up a specific proposal for the scheme. EU bodies have tried for many years to create a single patent system for Europe whose costs are lower than at present. The current …

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  1. Thomas 18
    Thumb Down

    Because the USPO is so great

    Anything that makes it easier to file a patent will just mean more available effort for the lawyers to patent troll and sue one another. At least the current way it's the translators who are bringing home the dosh.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Your expertise in this is ?

      what exactly ?

    2. Chemist

      What make you think ..

      That filing a patent is easy. In the UK & EU patent filings are examined. The documents are detailed and extremely tedious and take a large chunk out of ones working life.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Call me daft

    But isn't it better for the EU patent scheme proposal to run along line of:

    patent submitted in native language

    and

    patent submitted in one of the three offered languages if the native tongue is different to one of those three.

    ?

    (yes Minister, I can be a bureaucrat too?)

  3. Ralph B
    Headmaster

    A Challenge

    I challenge the EU to identify any non-UK resident who has the ability, knowledge and intelligence to come up with a patentable idea and complete the patent application process who does not also have the ability to do so in perfectly acceptable English.

    (I would not risk making the same challenge regarding a UK resident doing the same in any other European language. Including English.)

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. WonkoTheSane
    Megaphone

    This is the EU we're tallking about...

    Therefore, all applications must be made in French.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Patents are invaluable...

    if you have the time/money & expertise to draft and, more importantly, enforce them.

    If, and it is a very big if!, this change will make it less expensive and more straightforward for individuals and companies to do so then it will be an improvement all ways round.

    My fear is that all the change will do is make it more expensive and time consuming for SME's to develop and protect innovative and patentable ideas and concepts while allowing large enterprises yet further tools to hang the SME's with. In doing so it will put yet more money in the hands of already rich lawyers and IP professionals and civil servants without any beneficial change in IP protection.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    re: A Challenge

    Been there done that. 1982. Applied for a German Patent on a neat way of rasterising a vector graphics bitstream.

    Got the UK & US patents as well.

    Earned me exactly $0/£0/0DM in royalties btw.

    Time for a 6x methinks.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why French and German?

    Few outside these countries (and a few former colonies) speaks French or German as their first or second language whereas English is global. More English speakers in China (as a second language) than in US, UK, Oz combined.

  8. Wang N Staines

    10x

    but a 100x more effective.

    The USPO is a joke!!!! The people who work there don't take pride in their work.

    Bunch of ...

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