Norway comes in from the cold

It has taken them about 30 years to get round to it, but Norway has finally signed up to becoming a member state of the European Patent Convention, as announced by the EPO here.

Norway will, on 1 January 2008, become the 33rd member state to be fully signed up to the Convention.

Strangely, Norway was a participant and signatory at the 1973 Munich diplomatic conference, where the terms of the European Patent Convention were first agreed. Even though it has been entitled to join since the EPO was founded, it has been for a long while the only participant not yet to become a member.

The IPKat can only wonder: what took you so long?