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IP in the Space Sector Webinar – Presentation Slides
As highlighted in Adam Brocklehurst’s earlier post, Keltie hosted a webinar on “IP in the Space Sector” on 27 February. The speakers were Adam Brocklehurst and Richard Lawrence and the webinar covered IP fundamentals and myth-busting, issues in space sector IP and other relevant topics.
Since the webinar we’ve had a few requests for access to the slide show and this is embedded below. If you have any questions regarding the topics covered or have a spaced-based IP question then please sound off in the comments section. (more…)
Representation at the UPC – feedback from Rules of Procedure Submissions
A CIPA/IPO meeting back in January (covered in posts here and here) looked into the issue of representation in front of the Unified Patent Court (see Rule 286 of the Rules of Procedure) and in particular whether UK patent attorneys will automatically have that right, might be “grandfathered” in or might have to sit some sort of additional qualification.
Back in October last year IPcopy collated a few of the submissions sent in response to the public consultation on the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court and last week the 16th draft of the Rules of Procedure published accompanied by a handy “comprehensive digest” that explains some of the reasons behind the changes to the Rules. We thought we’d take a quick look at both the original submissions and the comprehensive digest to see whether any of the respondents touched on this issue as well.
Out of the 12 submissions we listed back in October, three addressed the issue of representation and the comments made by the Association of IP Professionals in Swedish Industry, Bristows LLP and the IP Federation (the IP Fed paper downloads as a PDF document) are noted below. There are also a fair number of comments in the digest document (though the three listed above do not appear to be there). (more…)
European Patent Litigation Certificate (Draft Paper now online)
Last week IPcopy wrote about a draft paper from the legal working group of the preparatory committee that discusses the European Patent Litigation Certificate and the other “appropriate qualifications” that are mentioned under Article 48(2) of the Unified Patent Court Agreement and are required for EPAs to have rights of representation at the UPC.
At the time of writing last week’s article the draft paper was not online but this changed over the weekend when the Twitter user @EPpatent posted a link to a Google docs copy of the paper. The draft paper can be found in our article European Patent Litigation Certificate (& other appropriate qualifications) which has been updated.
While you are checking out the draft paper, take a look at some of the comments on the earlier post, especially the one from IP Frog!
Mark Richardson 10 March 2014
16th draft of Rules of Procedure of Unified Patent Court
The 16th draft of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court has been published and can be found here (16th draft of Rules of Procedure). Helpfully the latest draft has been prepared as a marked-up document which means the amendments are easy to spot.
There’s a fair amount of red lined comments in this draft which IPcopy will take some time to digest. However, a few points of interest are noted below.
Nordic Baltic Regional Division Established & Brussels I Regulation Amendments
A couple of unitary patent news updates courtesy of Nick Cunningham and Michael Carter at Wragge & Co. relating to the signing of the Nordic Baltic regional division of the Unified Patent Court and the approval of the amendments to the Brussels I regulation.
European Patent Litigation Certificate (& other appropriate qualifications)
[Note: see also the post on 18 June 2014 relating to the public consultation for the EPLC proposals. Closing date is 25 July 2014. ipcopymark 18 June 2014]
Back in January this year CIPA and the IPO held a joint open meeting to discuss the issue of representation before the Unified Patent Court. This is a very important topic for patent attorneys and the CIPA/IPO meeting explored whether UK patent attorneys (who are EPAs) would have rights of representation at the UPC or whether additional qualifications would be necessary. IPcopy’s reports on this meeting are at the following links – Part I and Part II.
Last week an article went up on the Law Society Gazette asking “Who can act in European patents?” and reference was made in this article to a draft paper that has recently been produced by the legal working group of the preparatory committee. IPcopy had not seen this paper (or even heard of its existence) but the author of the Law Society article was kind enough to provide us with a copy. [Update: a copy of the draft paper has now appeared online and can be accessed here. 10/3/14]
In our view, if you are a European Patent Attorney, then this report does not make for happy reading. If the views expressed in the CIPA/IPO meeting are anything to go by then this seems especially the case if you are an EPA and UK patent attorney. IPcopy summarises the main points of the draft paper below. (more…)
Location, Location, Location (of divisions of the Unified Patent Court)
Along with all the other preparations that are required to implement the unitary patent package in the various participating member states, rumblings are often heard regarding the potential location of the local and regional divisions of the Unified Patent Court. This week IPcopy has heard/seen material relating to a potential local division in Ireland and also the possible setting up of a regional “Nordic-Baltic” division in Sweden, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania (Thanks to reader Hans van de Heuvel for the heads up regarding the Nordic-Baltic news). (more…)
And then there were three? President Hollande signs off on ratification of UPC Agreement
Following the recent adoption of the Agreement of the Unified Patent Court by the French National Assembly comes news that the French President, François Hollande, has now promulgated the law by signing off on the text in Paris on 24th February 2014.
IP Federation position on unregistered designs and the IP Bill
Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament
The Intellectual Property Bill is still awaiting a date for the Report stage in the House of Commons. One of the parts of the Bill that got a lot a discussion time was, of course, Clause 13 which introduces criminal sanctions for the copying of registered designs.
One point of discussion in relation to Clause 13 was its possible expansion to include unregistered design rights. This is something that ACID (Anti-copying in Design) in particular is keen to see happen. IPcopy would prefer that Clause 13 wasn’t in the Intellectual Property Bill at all but the registered design sanctions of the clause appear to be here to stay. However, extending the clause to cover unregistered designs would, in this ipcopywriter’s opinion, be a disaster.
Recently, the IP Federation has issued a policy paper on this issue and they have the following to say on the matter: (more…)
First hint of Unified Patent Court opt-out fee?
Members of IPcopy are always on the look out for snippets of unitary patent and unified patent court news and it was during such a search this week that we came across a conference report of a Unitary Patent Package Conference that was held in Amsterdam on 6 February 2014.
The full report of the conference can be found here. Having skimmed through the conference summary we noted a few points of interest which are detailed below. In particular we were interested to see what are apparently the first potential figures for the fee for opting a European patent out from the exclusive competence of the Unified Patent Court (the “opt-out fee”). These comments came from someone who is presumably familiar with the matter, Kevin Mooney of the Drafting Committee for the Rules of Procedure of the UPC. (more…)
IPcopy 