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UK Registered Design Fees – Consultation
The UKIPO is currently running a consultation that proposes changes in registered design fees. According to the consultation page on the UK Gov website the consultation arises from the development of a new digital design service for design customers. The new design service is expected to streamline the registration and renewal process with an associated reduction in operation costs. The government needs (wants?) to pass on these cost savings to the customer, hence the consultation. The proposed changes would significantly reduce application and renewal fees for UK registered designs. (more…)
Unitary Patent Package – The Ratification Game (Finland completes its ratification formalities)
Update (19 January 2016)
According to the website of the Council of the European Union, Finland has now deposited its instrument of ratification (on 19 January 2016) to become the ninth country to complete its ratification formalities. Finland joins Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, France and Austria as one of the nine countries who have completed their ratification processes.
The unitary patent system of course requires 13 countries to ratify including the UK, France and Germany.
Changes to accelerated prosecution (PACE) at the EPO
The EPO offers a number of mechanisms for expediting the grant procedure. As noted in the EPO’s November 2015 notice these include:
- PACE (see below for changes)
- Waiving the confirm to proceed notification under rule 70(2) EPC
- Waiving the rules 161/162 EPC communication
- Waiving a further communication under rule 71(3) EPC
- Early entry into the European phase
During post grant proceedings the above EPO Notice also highlights accelerated processing of oppositions where infringement proceedings have been instituted and accelerated processing before the Boards of Appeal.
From 1 January 2016, (Happy New Year everyone!), the EPO has tweaked the operation of the PACE programme slightly. Full details can be found in the EPO’s PACE Notice dated 30 November 2015. The highlights are as follows: (more…)
2015’s Top 10 Posts on IPcopy
Yeah, of course I’m excited it’s Christmas….
As we contemplate the possibility that another recipe from “101 Things to do with Cold Turkey” is going to be needed to shift the last of the Christmas food, we thought we’d take a quick look back at the top 10 most read posts that we published this year. (more…)
USPTO: Beyond the Final Frontier (What happens after a Final Office Action)
The US patent prosecution process can become a bit confusing once the application reaches the “final” Office Action stage. The “final” nature of the Office Action (OA) means that the Examiner has rejected the claims at least two times. However, it is by no means the end of the process with after-final amendments, appeal and a request for continued examination often being on the cards.
The various options available to the applicant were the subject of a recent webinar that IPcopy attended and what follows is a summary of the webinar (any errors clearly being the work of the author of this post!). (more…)
UPC: Double patenting, Changes to Patents Act, Opt-out Register UI & Taskforce update
Christmas is nearly here and barring any end of the year UPC ratifications we’re not expecting too much to happen on the unitary patent and Unified Patent Court until next year. Before Christmas arrives however here’s a quick update: (more…)
EU Commission: unitary patent concerns; IP insurance and unitary SPCs
The European Commission website provides something of a byzantine navigational challenge so IPcopy is extremely grateful to Martin Chatel for pointing us in the direction of the Commission staff working document “A Single Market Strategy for Europe – Analysis and Evidence” which discusses the unitary patent package. (more…)
Alice in USPTOland
Following the Alice Corp v CLS Bank decision in June 2014 the USPTO’s position with respect to patent eligible subject matter has changed.
But having swallowed the red pill just how deep does the rabbit hole go? What is and what is not patent eligible subject matter in the US? (more…)
Patent Box Consultation: closing date for comments 4 December 2015
As previously reported on IPcopy, HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs are currently running a consultation on proposed changes to the UK Patent Box scheme. The consultation runs until this Friday (4 December 2015) and the consultation document, which includes some background on the existing Patent Box scheme, can be found here.
The main change proposed in the consultation is the use of R&D expenditure as a proxy for “substantial activities”. A so called “nexus fraction” will then be calculated in which a company’s own R&D expenditure on the IP in question plus any subcontracted R&D expenditure to an unrelated party (these figures together forming the “qualifying expenditure”) will be divided by the qualifying expenditure plus any R&D subcontracted to a related party plus acquisition costs.
Companies who have developed their own IP are likely to have a nexus fraction of close to “1” and so will essentially be unaffected by the revised rules. However, company’s which have acquired IP will see nexus fractions of <1 which will therefore reduce the income which qualifies for the new Patent Box.
Although the main change is the use of R&D expenditure as a proxy for substantial activities it is noted that the proposed changes will also have some other fairly noticeable effects, namely: (more…)
UPC Update (November 2015, part II): SPCs, US interest and UK Taskforce
In today’s update we highlight an article relating to Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) and the UPC and an article that discusses the interest of US applicants for unitary patent protection. We also have the most recent update from the UK’s UPC Taskforce. (more…)
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