EPC2000 or bust; London Agreement not so bad for translators

Tomorrow is the big day for the European Patent Office and all those who use it. The new version of the European Patent Convention, EPC2000, will come into force. The EPO is making changes to its website accordingly. Of course, by the time you read this it might have all changed, so the IPKat does not guarantee these links will work. For any who remain puzzled by the changes, a take-away version is available for free here.

According to the status page on the EPO website, Portugal is yet to deposit its instrument (at least as of late on 12 December). Will it make it on time? What happens if it doesn't? IPKat readers at least seem to be generally confident that it will, since less than 10% of the 524 votes received on the IPKat poll went for Portugal being the last one in.

A much larger 27%, however, thought (apparently incorrectly) that Italy would be the last one in. Perhaps this was due to a general cynicism about the Italian system being, on the whole, rather glacial. This is not how fellow blogger and proud Italian Lorenzo Litta sees it. Somehow, ratifying EPC2000 one day later than France results in a victory for Italy in his eyes. The IPKat is a little puzzled at the strange games they play on the continent...

Translators are not all gloomy about the London Agreement coming into force next year (see IPKat post here, and EPO news here), according at least to big player RWS. A recent story in the Scotsman reports that RWS plan on taking a £1 million hit when the agreement kicks in, but don't see this as being much of a problem with a turnover in excess of £46 million. The future is bright, apparently, and the loss of a few German and French translation jobs is nothing to be worried about.