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| The Rosetta Stone |
The maybe most important point from a practiacal point of view is he prolongation of the delay for filing German translations of applications originally filed in English of French language from 3 months to 12 months from the filing date but not later than 15 months from the priority date. The examiner may invite the applicant to file the translation earlier in exceptional cases of particular complexity.
In addition, applications for which the translation is not timely filed are no longer deemed to be not filed but deemed to be withdrawn. The consequence is that the priority may still be claimed.
According to the explanatory remarks of the proposal (page 27, 1st paragraph), the DPMA will carry out the search and issue the search opinion for applications filed in English or French even if the translations are not yet provided.
Applicants may file their first applications in English language and will obtain a preliminary opinion prior to the expiry of the due date for filing the translation into German and decide on the basis of this opinion on his further strategy. The (slightly increased) search fees of EUR 300 are a very competitive price for a reasoned opinion and if the applicant decides to file an EP application to be validated in Germany later on, the original German application may be dropped and no translation of the full specification into German will ever be necessary.
For German applicants, this will strongly increase the attractivity of first filings in english language, in particuar if they follow an "all or nothing" strategy where the application is either dropped or prosecuted in multiple countries and where the probability of prosecuting the application in Germany only is low.
The proposal has yet to be ratified by the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
