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Unitary patent package – Ratification update
As noted on the Bristows website the French Senate launched, on 23 October 2013, a Bill authorising ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The Bill can be found here and contains an overview of the UPC system. The Bill has been flagged up under an accelerated procedure which presumably means France is pushing to be the first of the “required 3” countries to ratify the Agreement (the other two required countries are the UK and Germany).
The UK’s IP Bill is, of course, in the House of Commons where it is currently awaiting a date for its second reading. UK ratification is not expected until early 2015. If anyone knows the state of play in Germany then feel free to drop us a line or post a comment below!
Mark Richardson 1 November 2013
IPcopy in Washington – Part 2: AIPLA 2013 – Developments in EP patent law
Last week IPcopy had the pleasure of attending the annual meeting of AIPLA in Washington. As well as listening to some of the hot issues of the day on the US side of the pond (section 101/patent eligibility and non-practising entities in particular – see our earlier post here) we also got the chance to get some US practitioner’s thoughts on the European patent landscape.
What follows below therefore are some European developments that may be of interest to our US colleagues. (more…)
Patent box and R&D tax credits – musings from a recent presentation
We’ve written a fair amount recently on IPcopy about the UK’s patent box regime and R&D tax credits. However a few weeks ago we were treated at Keltie to a great presentation from Kevin Phillips and Andy Nash from Baker Tilly on both subjects from which I’ve extracted the following points that caught my eye/ear.
IPcopy in Washington: AIPLA 2013
IPcopy attended a number of lectures at AIPLA last week which discussed areas of development or concern in US patent law. What follows are a few thoughts and observations. (more…)
European Divisional Applications – Rule 36 EPC, As You Were? (Updated)
Updated with EPO confirmation & proposed amendments
As noted earlier on IPcopy, Rule 36 EPC, which was amended in 2010 to introduce 24 month time limits for filing divisional European patent applications from a parent European patent application, was made the subject of an EPO consultation. The consultation closed on 5 April 2013 but the EPO website has not yet been updated with any details of the responses received.
However, a number of sources (1, 2, 3) are now reporting that Rule 36 is to be amended from 1 April 2014 such that the 24 month deadline rule is removed and the procedure reverts back to the pre-April 2010 arrangements. So far there has been no official announcement from the EPO.
Patent Trolls – Crisis? What crisis?
If you Google (other search engines are available!) the terms “patent troll” and “$29 billion” you’ll find a multitude of articles stating that patent trolls curb innovation and cost the U.S. $29 billion in 2011. You might be forgiven for concluding that there’s a big problem. You’d be right, though not for the reasons you might expect.
IPcopy’s Odds & Sods: Acronym soup – EPO/APAA/AIPLA
The EPO has launched a consultation to ensure the Case Law of the Boards of Appeal continues to meet the needs of users. The consultation runs for a while (closing date: 31 March 2014) and can be accessed here. The most recent version of the Case Law Book (the 7th version) has only just been released of course and can be found here.
Some acronym heavy overseas meetings next up:
1) 
The Asian Patent Attorneys Association (APAA) 62nd Council Meeting is to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam from 19-22 October. Shakeel Ahmad and Dev Crease from Keltie LLP will be in attendance so if you see them please say hello. Details of the meeting can be found here.
2) The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) will be holding its 2013 AIPLA Annual Meeting from 24-26 October in Washington, D.C. Michael Moore and Mark Richardson from Keltie LLP will be going along and are looking forward to the conference. AIPLA has a twitter hashtag for the more social media minded attendees to use and the marketing material suggests we include the hashtag #aiplaAM13 to be a part of the conversation!
BBC’s Panorama & the Patent Box (IP – Hit or Miss?)
In the last couple of weeks, in the context of the UK’s patent box tax regime, this ipcopywriter has twice heard mention of a Panorama programme that discussed the patent box. In both cases the opinion expressed of Auntie Beeb’s current affairs show was as low as a World Champion limbo dancer.
So what was wrong with the programme? IPcopy decided to investigate.
The Bridge Inspection Authority – the FTC and “Patent Trolls”
Everyone in the intellectual property community will be aware that the debate over the activity of “patent trolls” has lasted years, and has always contained plenty of heat and not a lot of light. The heat shows no sign of diminishing, as journalists realise that there’s an easy story to file in a day trip to Tyler or Beaumont to look at a corridor of brass plated doors with no-one behind them – but there are at least some attempts to shine a light under the bridge to see what these trolls really look like. The latest of these is the recently announced proposal for a collection of information by the Federal Trade Commission (the FTC).
There has been little unanimity on what a patent troll is – except than that no definition ever covers the commercial activity of whoever is making the definition. It has even been difficult to find a neutral generic term for such behaviour. We used to use NPE (“Non Practising Entity”), to distinguish patent owners only interested in licensing from patent holders who used patents to support their own commercial activity in selling products and services. This term fell out of use when it was appreciated that one class of NPEs is long established, generally respected, and considered by most to be behaving in an acceptable way with its stock of intellectual property – such NPEs are often known as “universities”.
Steve Jobs, a Keynote video and US/DE grace periods
Last week FOSS Patents carried an interesting article about the impact that the original iPhone Keynote presentation has had on the validity of one of Apple’s own patents. Follow up press reports (e.g. this one) have focused on the fact that the “rubber band” patent has been invalidated on the basis of this video disclosure. However, the original article contained some points of interest with respect to grace periods in the US and Europe and the effect that the German court decision on the “rubber band” patent may have on Apple’s utility model in Germany.
Curiosity suitably piqued IPcopy took a quick look at the case. For ease of reference we also produced a handy timeline of events so you can see what happened and when.
IPcopy 