Brussels, 25/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - Further to an article in yesterday's EUROPE (p.12) on the negotiations in progress for adoption of the Community patent, the Permanent Representation for Italy wishes to recall that Italy also defends the use of all official Community languages for the future patent, alongside Spain, Portugal and Greece. The Presidency had proposed a compromise providing for patent claims and its summary to be translated "on request" into languages other than the three official languages (English, French and German). This proposal is not acceptable for Italy, Spain and Portugal, which would not only prefer the claims and the summary to be "systematically" translated but would also prefer, in the phase preceding recognition of the patent, to allow companies to file their application for a patent in their own language. In order, on one hand, to reconcile parity between the companies that use the three official languages and the others, and also to ensure cost moderation, the price of translating patent applications should be "socialised", says one Italian diplomat.
If an agreement between Member States on the problem of languages is not to be ruled out, the difficulties linked to the future roles of the national patent offices, on which Spain and Portugal insist, could, on the other hand, delay adoption of the Community Patent for some time.