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Unitary Patent & the Brexit Brake
The EU Referendum is now set for 23 June 2016. Welcome to four months of speculation. Will it be NoGo or BoGo?
While watching Boris do his bit for party unity on Sunday, IPcopy started wondering what a Brexit would do to the implementation of the unitary patent system. As previously discussed on this blog, if the UK exits the EU then UK European Patent Attorneys will still be able to represent parties at the unified patent court by virtue of the provisions of Article 48(2) UPC Agreement. However, will a Brexit impact the unitary patent system coming online?
Cue the Brexit Brake? flowchart… (more…)
Rating inventions, patent applications & patents
Image from Pixabay.com
The concept of rating things:
A motion picture rating system is designated to classify films with regard to suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other types of mature content. The movie rating system used in the United States was created in 1968, with the rating system originally consisted of four ratings but now including five. The body that assigns these ratings is the Rating Board, located in Los Angeles.
A credit rating estimates the credit worthiness of an individual, corporation, or even a country. It is an evaluation made by credit bureaus of a borrower’s overall credit history. Credit ratings are calculated from financial history and current assets and liabilities.
A rating is the evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of quality (as with a critic rating a novel), quantity (as with an athlete being rated by his or her statistics), or some combination of both.
Rating inventions, patent applications and granted patents:
This concept of rating also can be applied in the world of intellectual property (IP), and specifically to inventions, patent applications and granted patents. (more…)
Unwired and Huawei’s Excellent Adventure: Birss J boards his Time Machine to look at prior art disclosures on the Internet
In a recent decision in Unwired Planet v Huawei, Birss J considered when a potential prior art document, which had been disclosed online, had been made available to the public. In the case in question the facts were such that the document had been published just a matter of hours before the priority document was filed. It was not in dispute that the document amounted to an enabling disclosure of the invention. (more…)
UPC – Court locations, IPReg guidance note and Case Management System
UPC Confirmed Locations. The UPC website was updated last week with UPC divisions that have confirmed their locations. The Court of Appeal in Luxembourg, the Nordic-Baltic Regional Division in Sweden and the four local divisions and central division in Germany are currently listed along with their addresses and some photos. (more…)
EPO prosecution delays and the European Convention on Human Rights
A recent case decided by the EPO’s Board of Appeal has tackled the issue of delays in prosecution and noted that, for the application in issue, the duration of the first instance proceedings (12 years) amounted to an excessive delay. Reference was made in the reasons of the decision to other cases in which the Applicant’s rights under Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights have been infringed. (more…)
UPC Taskforce Update: January 2016
The update messages from the UK’s UPC Taskforce have started up again after the recent holiday break and we have the first update of what promises to be a fairly busy year.
Preparatory Committee – the next meeting for the Prep Committee is scheduled for this month and the agenda is scheduled to cover some significant items including: judicial salaries, Registry rules, arbitration and the final proposal for the court fees. (Will there be any changes to the level of the opt-out fee? It will be interesting to see the updated proposal in due course.) The Rules of Procedure will require some minor tweaking to incorporate the court fees and also admin errors in the opt-out process and the Rules are due to come before the Prep Committee in April. (more…)
Intellectual Property in the Oil & Gas sector
The UK’s Oil and Gas industry is, according to the UK Government press release last week, its largest industrial sector worth around £19 billion and accounting for 375,000 jobs within the economy. It is estimated that the oil that can still be exploited from the North Sea may be equivalent to 50% of all the oil exploited to date. The decommissioning business is forecast to be around £45 billion in the next 25 years or so.
Against this backdrop however the oil and gas sector is in the midst of a challenging time with the oil price in the $30 a barrel area, down from $90-120 a barrel just a couple of years ago.
In response to the ongoing situation in the oil and gas industry sector, the UK Government has announced a range of measures including a £1.3 billion package of reforms in the March 2015 budget. The Oil and Gas Authority was also established in April last year to improve collaboration and productivity, attract investment and to create jobs in the sector. (more…)
UPC developments: Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co’s Patents Seminar
The always entertaining and informative Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co’s annual patents seminar was held last week and included a round-up of recent developments relating to the unitary patent and UPC. (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…)
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