Common design rules face language hurdle

Date: 21/12/00

By Peter Chapman

EU efforts to set up a standardised system to protect the work of designers from pirates and counterfeiters could fall victim to a fierce battle over the working languages for the scheme.

The proposals, which were unveiled last year by Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, would give companies or individual designers full legal protection for their work in all member states with a single application to the EU's Office for Harmonisation in Spain. To be eligible for the Union-wide stamp of approval, a design would have to be new and possess 'an individual character'.

But diplomatic sources say member states are deeply divided over the thorny issue of which language to use for the one-stop-shop system, which builds on an EU directive harmonising national rules on designs.

There are currently five working languages for official documents at the Alicante centre, which also administers the EU's trademark regime: Spanish, English, German, French and Italian. But Belgium, Portugal and Greece are complaining about the exclusion of their respective languages, arguing that the proposal would discriminate against their industries and designers.

Leading the opposition is Belgium, which wants Dutch added to the list of permitted languages. The issue is particularly sensitive in the country, in which both French and Dutch are official languages.

Sources say efforts are being made by the outgoing French presidency to resolve the problem, but believe a compromise deal is unlikely to be struck before Swedes take over at the Union's helm in January. They add that Belgium is currently trying to gauge the strength of public opinion on the linguistic point before deciding whether to end its opposition to proposals, which it otherwise supports.

The language dispute is the last remaining obstacle to formal adoption of the draft regulation, which needs the unanimous approval of governments to become EU law.

Member states resolved other key issues which had been standing in the way of an accord at last month's meeting of single market ministers in Brussels. A row over the scope of measures to protect spare car parts was defused when ministers agreed to a stop-gap deal. Their compromise would allow copies of original equipment used in cars and other 'complex equipment' only for repair purposes, pending the results of a Commission study and separate proposals in 2001. Ministers also agreed to give limited design protection to non-registered products.

The language dispute mirrors a similar battle over Commission plans to set up an EU-wide patent system. Some countries are balking at seeing official patent records written only in French, English or German. "In this kind of regulation you always get a debate over the language that will be used," said one diplomat.

EU efforts to set up a standardised system to protect the work of designers from pirates and conterfeiters could fall victim to a fierce battle over the working languages for the scheme.