Talk:Vehicle registration plates of Europe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Cars Portal This article is within the scope of Wikipedia Project Automobiles, a collective approach to creating a comprehensive guide to the world of automobiles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you are encouraged to visit the project page, where you can contribute to the discussion.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
???	This article has not yet been assigned a rating on the importance scale.

Vehicle registration plates of Europe is within the scope of the Motorcycling WikiProject, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of motorcycles and motorcycling. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

[edit] EUR plates

Can anyone add more information about this kind of EUR plates? Cheers. – Kaihsu 13:57, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

They're Belgian plates for European Commission officials [1][2].--GagHalfrunt 15:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alleged claim of patent violation

User:Mottram1, who appears to be connected to David and Nansi Mottram who claim to have a UK patent on the EU format registration plate (with the 12 stars and national identification letters) has inserted into the article a claim of their prior art and possession of a UK Patent for the design since 1995. The link they provide appears to be to their own site, which after reading through I am not sure whether they have a case or not - their site shows various patent certificates but not the associated descriptions of what was patented. If they have a case, I would have expected them to have initiated a legal case by now, but I have been unable to locate a reference on Google which does not originate with the Mottrams. Opinions on whether we let this stand here and on linked articles? -- 83.104.44.241 23:33, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

As I've noted in the article, Germany introduced plates with the common design in January 1994 [3]. The Mottrams applied for a registered design in 1995 and it was granted in 1996 [4]. It would therefore appear that the Patent Office was wrong to grant the registered design, at least for the common design without national flag, which was already in use in Germany when the Mottrams made their application. User:Mottram1 has also added the claim to British car number plates and Vehicle registration plate.--GagHalfrunt 12:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This nonsense has no place in an encyclopedia article. The claim clearly has no basis in fact, as the design was in use months before the application was submitted. I have removed it. 143.252.80.100 15:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UK Registration Plate Image

The image of a UK number plate shows an illegal number plate (the symbol on the left is not permitted). Perhaps the image should be replaced with an example of a legal UK plate, which would be more indicative of the vast majority of number plates found in the UK? Matt-thepie 00:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I've just replaced the image with an example complying with the British standards and in the European format. If anyone has any problem with this, please change it back to the original. Sneyton 18:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)