EU ministers fail to agree single Euro patent

12/03/2004 - 14:32:10
European Union ministers yesterday failed to agree on a single European patent because of arguments about language problems.

The push for a single European patent is intended to promote innovation by bringing costs down and establishing a clear European system for the protection of patent-holders.

Patents in Europe can cost as much as four times as a US patent, mainly because of red tape and translation requirements.

EU Ministers had reached an agreement in principle last year.

However, eight of the 15 EU member states said yesterday they could not accept the compromises over possible linguistic discrepancies in patent descriptions.

Tánaiste Mary Harney, who chaired yesterday's discussions, described the failure as "deeply disappointing".