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EPO Divisional Rule Change – 1 April 2014
As has been reported here and elsewhere the EPO is to change its rules governing the filing of divisional applications with effect from 1 April 2014.
This rule change follows a consultation that ran during March 2013. Although the consultation can still be accessed on the EPO website (here) it is noticeable that the EPO has not published a summary of responses to their “Completed Consultations” page.
Recently however Heli Pihlajamaa, Director of Patent Law at the European Patent Office, spoke in a live webinar session on the new rules and links to the presentation and the video of the seminar have appeared on the EPO website (though for some reason the link to the video recording has subsequently been taken down). (more…)
Much Ado About UK Divisional Deadline Rules (Clarification from the UKIPO)
Following IPcopy’s post last week regarding the amendment to divisional deadline rules, ipcopymark reached out to the UK Intellectual Property Office to seek clarification over why the rule was being changed and whether the new rule will change any procedures at the UKIPO going forward.
The response from the UKIPO confirmed that there is not intended to be any change to the practice of filing divisional applications at the UKIPO. However, it was confirmed that incoming Rule 19 is being introduced to address a perceived flaw in the drafting of the current Rule 19 in which it could be argued that the two-month divisional period would be reset following the issuance of every communication under Section 18(4) Patents Act 1977. Whether or not you interpret current Rule 19 in this way, the incoming Rule 19 closes this potential loophole.
IPReg Consultation on simplifying and modernising the examination system for qualifying as a patent attorney
IPReg has now confirmed that their recent consultation looking at the UK patent attorney exam system has closed. Not surprisingly there were a large number of responses and IPReg is suggesting a minimum of 3 months but more likely 6 months before their conclusions are published.
All the responses will, in time, be published unless you contact them and inform them otherwise.
See below for a selection of published responses to the consultation.
Unitary Patent System – Nuggets of News
Today we have a quick round up of some unitary patent related news items that have cropped up in the last week or so. Read on for news on the Danish referendum, the opening of the training centre for UPC Judges, an update on the ratification process in Germany and a slip in the official start date for the whole unitary patent package. (more…)
Pharma Patents UK Case Law in 2013
Today we have a guest post from Suleman Ali of Holly IP and K2 on the subject of UK Pharma caselaw in 2013. This post was originally posted on the Holly IP blog IP Trends and is reproduced with the permission of the author. These points are gleaned from a talk by Neil Jenkins given at the CIPA Life Sciences Conference on 14 November 2013.
New referral to EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal – follow up
As noted in a recent post on IPcopy, the freedom for a patentee to amend claims during EPO opposition and opposition appeal proceedings is to be considered by the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA).
Since our earlier post we have heard mention of this referral from a member of the Technical Boards of Appeal at a seminar in London and have also had further comments from the Chairman of the case in question, including some suggestions as to when the referral will progress further. (more…)
UK Changes Divisional Deadline Rules [Updated]
Lord Younger signed the SI on 8 March
As mentioned on Monday by IPKat, the rules regarding time limits for filing divisional patent applications from UK applications are being changed.
Under the current system, if a notice of compliance under Section 18(4) Patents Act 1977 is received, the applicant would have two months within which to file any divisionals. The two month period is being maintain under the amended rule, however, there will be an additional requirement to meet. Namely, that the parent must not have received any objections in an examination report.
This means that if the parent was found to meet the requirements for grant after more than one examination, there would be no opportunity to file divisionals once the notice of compliance is received.
10 Points on the EPO Boards of Appeal
Today we have a guest post from Suleman Ali of Holly IP and K2 on the subject of the EPO Boards of Appeal. This post was originally posted on the Holly IP blog IP Trends and is reproduced with the permission of the author. There’s some interesting tidbits of information here from Appeal statistics to backlogs and from divergence between the Boards to the need to wear a tie! These points are gleaned from a talk by Alexander Clelland (ex-head of a Board of Appeal) given at the CIPA Life Sciences Conference on 14 November 2013.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…)
Speculation on the Unitary Patent Renewal Fees: Graphs, graphs, graphs and a prediction
Cast your mind back to December 2012 when the Unitary Patent Regulation and Unified Patent Agreement were approved by the European Parliament, and you may recall a lot of press releases explaining what great value for money the unitary patent would be. In particular, we were told that the unitary patent would bring patent protection in Europe financially in line with patent protection in other countries, such as the US and China.
Back then, the fees relating to the unitary patent were completely unknown. Fifteen months later, we know little more than we did then: it seems likely that there will be no fee for validating a unitary patent, and rumours are that the opt-out fee will be in the region of €50 – €100, but we are still in the dark when it comes to the most important fees of all: the renewal fees of the unitary patent. The only titbit that has recently escaped the lips of anyone in the know came from the EPO president, who said cryptically in December 2013 that the renewal fees would be “higher than many would hope, but lower than some might fear”.
The level at which the renewal fees are set will be key in determining whether the unitary patent can deliver on its promise of value for money. The Select Committee responsible for setting the renewal fees must balance on the one hand the need to keep the unitary patent financially attractive to industry, and on the other hand the need for the unitary patent to be self-financing. The second part of this equation is difficult for us to assess from the outside. The first half, however, is susceptible to a bit of speculation.
So, in this post, which will feature a lot of graphs, we will be taking a look at how value-for-money (in terms of renewal fees) differs among countries within the EPC and how the EPC and Unitary Patent countries currently compare to the US and China, and we will consider what level the Unitary Patent fees might need to be if they are to match the value-for-money offered by Chinese and US patents. We’re even going to go so far as to put out a prediction. We fully expect to be proved completely wrong, but hope that throwing out some actual numbers might generate some interesting discussion from commentators…
IPcopy 