On May the 1st 2008 the London Agreement came into force in what concerns article 65th of the European Patent Convention, having as an objective the reduction of the translation costs in the procedures of validation of European patents in the countries designated in the context of a European patent application.

The London Agreement culminates successive efforts by the industry and the inventors aiming at reducing the high costs for the protection of a European patent in the designated countries. Until the 1st of May 2008, any validation of a European patent implied the filing of a translation of the text of the patent, namely of the description and of the claims. If we think that these two important elements of the patent can easily reach 100 pages or more and if we still imagine that the applicant can apply for the validation of the European patent in all the member-countries of the Convention, it is easy to conclude that the costs can reach tens of thousands of Euros.
According to the London Agreement the applicant of the European patent is exempt of providing the translation if the official language of the designated country is one of the official languages of the European Institute of Patents (English, French or German). It is the case of countries like France, Germany, United Kingdom, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco and Switzerland.
When, in countries that have ratify the London Agreement, the respective official language does not correspond to one of the official languages of the Institute, these countries will renounce to the translation if the European patent is written in the official language of the Institute that they have chosen previously (English, French or German), reserving these countries, in any case, the right of demanding translation of the claims for their respective official languages.
The countries that ratified the London Agreement reserve still the right of requesting the complete translation of the text of the patent in the event of litigations.
Until now Croatia, Denmark, Iceland, Holland and Sweden have already designated the English language as language of reception for any European patent to be validated in these countries. In any case, these countries, like Latvia and Slovenia, still require the translation of the claims to the respective official languages.
Until the present date Portugal did not ratify yet the London Agreement and therefore nothing is known as for the options that it will take. In this sense, and for the time being, whoever intends to validate a European patent in Portugal will still have to provide the translation to Portuguese language of the integral text of the patent.

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