Luxembourg, 11/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - European competitiveness ministers were unable, on Monday, to reach agreement on the European patent, mainly due to fears expressed by Italy and Spain. The Belgian presidency had sought to reach an agreement by suggesting a compromise to the different delegations, so that English would become the only language into which patents would be translated. This would be for a transitional period only until machine translation has reached a sufficient level. Once this stage has been reached, patents may be translated into all languages from the three recognised official languages (English, French and German). At that moment, however, patents would be for information purposes only and would have no legal effect. The compromise text leaves untouched the privileges granted to French and German applicants who would still be able to file patents in their own language, while other Europeans would need to translate their applications into English, French or German. Andrea Ronchi, the Italian minster for European affairs, said the proposal was “unacceptable”, saying that the system would quite simply be discriminatory against Italian companies. Nonetheless, the Belgian minister for the economy, Vincent Van Quickenborne, pointed out that the debate would continue in order to reach a compromise by end December. He did, however, underline that there were two red lines: - “the additional translation costs and the legal uncertainty”, which they find unacceptable. For now, the minister preferred to put the solution of the United Kingdom and Ireland to one side. This consists in launching enhanced cooperation on the question of patents. The subject will therefore be on the agenda of the next competitiveness council in November. (B.C./transl.jl)