Talk:Strasbourg Agreement Concerning the International Patent Classification

May 2009, 60 or 61 Contracting States?

Avala, would you have a source to verify that Serbia has become a Contracting State to the Agreement? Note that having signed the Agreement does not necessarily imply ratification. Thanks. --Edcolins (talk) 09:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It clearly says "ratified", Serbia was a signatory much before yesterday. The source is in Serbian only but here you go - [1] - Скупштина је ратификовала Ревидирану европску социјалну повељу и Стразбуршки споразум о међународној класификацији патената од 24. марта 1971. године, са изменама од 28. септембра 1979. године..

Thanks, I see (although I don't understand Serbian at all, and I'll trust you on that). Article 12, "Becoming Party to the Agreement" reads:

(1) Any country party to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property may become party to this Agreement by:

(i) signature followed by the deposit of an instrument of ratification, ..

Thus the ratification is actually not sufficient, the "deposit of the instrument of ratification" should follow before Serbia may officially become party to this Agreement. I have modified the article's wording accordingly. --Edcolins (talk) 22:10, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Signature is signature, it's the first step and the second step is ratification that includes the "deposit of the instrument of ratification". There are no two ratification processes here. Anyway their website is now updated and lists 61 contracting parties. Three more states are now signatories but still need to ratify the document.--Avala (talk) 12:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there were two ratification steps for Serbia, the approval by the Parliament, in May 2009 as discussed above, and then the deposit of the ratification instruments on July 15, 2009, as mentioned here. But anyway, this does seem to have only an academic interest... --Edcolins (talk) 20:09, 9 September 2009 (UTC)