By Henrietta Billings - 25th November 2003
EU ministers are set to reach a long - awaited deal over the community patent at this week's competitiveness Council in Brussels.
A council spokesman told EUpolitix.com that after three weeks of high level ambassador meetings in the run up to Thursday's meeting, "political agreement is widely expected".
The aim of the new law is to introduce a single, cheap mechanism for the protection of inventions valid throughout the EU and ministers have been negotiating for years to clinch a deal.
Most contentious is the translation languages of the patents.
Under the plans patent applications could be made in one of the three official languages of the European Patent Office, ie. French, English or German.
In March this year ministers agreed that successful patents must be then be translated into all official community languages.
France, the UK and Germany say in order to cut costs the EPO should have a two-year grace to translate each patent once it has been issued.
But this has been challenged by Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy and most accession countries who fear their businesses will suffer and want a three to six month time limit.
A council spokesman said a compromise deal of nine months is likely to be the final outcome.
The legislation falls under the "consultation" procedure whereby the European Parliament has no power sharing over the formulation of the proposal.
After Thursday's agreement, the text will be forwarded to MEPs for consultation, where it is expected to be broadly approved.
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