News in the IPR field

The London Agreement and amendments to acts into force on 1 November 2011

28.10.2011

The London Agreement enters into force in Finland on 1 November 2011. After Finland accedes to the agreement, 16 of the altogether 38 contracting states of the European Patent Convention (EPC) have signed up to it. The salient point in the London Agreement is the requirement for translation set by the EPC contracting states on European Patents granted by the European Patent Office and validated in each country. Earlier, the entire text, both specification and claims, of patents to be validated in Finland had to be in Finnish. With the London Agreement, this requirement changes in that in the European Patents that are granted on 1 November 2011 or later, the specification may be filed either in Finnish or English. However, the claims are still to be filed in Finnish.

As the London Agreement enters into force, the Finnish patent legislation is also amended such that English may be selected as the language for the national phase of patents submitted on 1 November 2011 or later. This means that the entire filing process may be done in English. However, when the patent becomes public (18 months from the filing date), a Finnish or Swedish translation of the claims should also be available. The specification may remain in English and need not be translated into Finnish even for the grant.

In addition, part of the data on record of patent and utility model applications, such as information on the inventor, title of the invention, patent classification of the application, briefs, and payments, only become public at the same time with the application.