Tuesday, March 21, 2006 Maltese Forum Discusses EU Patent Translation (Malta Independent Online): The Malta fl-Ewropa forum has initiated consultation meetings to discuss proposed EU regulations regarding medical devices and EU patents. The forum was set up to facilitate the government's consultation with non-governmental organisations and stakeholders on the proposed EU laws; to serve as a reference point and help in the diffusion of Malta-EU information; to help civil society and SMEs to access EU funding opportunities and to promote debate on EU issues. One of the consultation meetings focused on the proposals related with EU patents. At the moment, patents can be awarded either on a national basis or through the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich, which grants the European Patents with a single application and granting procedure. However, each member state may still require that in order for the patent to be legally valid in their territory, the European Patent is translated into its official language. Translation costs make patenting an invention in Europe significantly more expensive than in the US or Japan. The main stumbling block for the Community Patent concerns the question of the translation of patent claims. EU ministers have so far been unable to agree on the number of languages required, time delays for translation into the remaining languages and the legal validity of patents in case of translation errors. The original Commission proposal foresaw that the patent be valid as granted by the European Patent Office in one of the three EPO languages: English, French, German, while translations need to be published in the other two languages for information purposes. 4:31:07 PM    comment [] Language skills boost short-term memory HELSINKI, Finland, March 13 (UPI) -- Researchers in Finland say poor short-term memory is often due to an ineffective language learning process The University of Helsinki study says people who can repeat long series of numbers or multisyllabic nonsense words without making errors are typically good at learning languages. Researchers found that a good short-term memory is not a prerequisite for long-term learning. The study says both short-term and long-term memory tasks tap the same ability of the nervous system to create representations of sufficient quality to support the maintenance of several of them at once. The study also found that the understanding of symbolic language differs from that of literal language. Metaphoric language often puts greater stress on working memory and so is harder to process than literal language. 3:23:31 PM    comment [] © Copyright 2007 Global Translations.

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