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UPC Update: UK UPC Taskforce (June 2015)
Unitary patent and UPC related progress continues to creep forward and the UKIPO has issued another of its regular updates. Once again there’s no major news but some smaller updates ….. (more…)
Patent Box – Some Practical Considerations
A “patent box” (though eagle eyed readers should be able to tell why this wouldn’t qualify..)
Keltie LLP was pleased to welcome David Clift of Hazelwoods recently to give a presentation on the issue of Patent Box that highlighted practical experience of the regime along with some hints and tips and areas to be wary of. In this post we’ll briefly recap the scheme before focussing on the practical advice provided in the presentation. (more…)
Unitary Patent Package – The Ratification Game (Luxembourg completes its ratification formalities)
Update (22 May 2015)
According to the website of the Council of the European Union, Luxembourg has now deposited its instrument of ratification (on 22 May 2015) to become the seventh country to complete its ratification formalities. Luxembourg joins Malta, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, France and Austria as one of the seven countries who have completed their ratification processes.
Regular readers will recall that we noted back in March that Luxembourg had ratified the UPC Agreement but had not deposited its instrument of ratification in Brussels. Now that Luxembourg has completed all of the formalities we have updated our ratification infographic (for an answer to the question “What’s up with this infographic?“, please see the bottom of the post!”).
UPC Updates: UK UPC Taskforce, Italy U-turn & the Belgian Challenge
IPcopy has received a further short update from the UK’s UPC taskforce on the state of play with the unitary patent and UPC. We also note below the updated position of Italy with respect to the unitary patent and the state of the Belgian challenge to the ratification of the UPC Agreement. (more…)
Patents and confidential information
Previous posts in our “general introduction to IP” series have provided an overview of different Intellectual Property Rights and have taken a closer look at issues arising in the area of Copyright and Designs. In this article however we are going to take a look at patents, protecting your invention and confidential information. (more…)
Unitary patent renewal fees: revised proposal
A short while ago IPcopy reported on proposals from the EPO Select Committee in respect of the renewal fee levels for the unitary patent.
Readers may recall that the Select Committee proposed a unitary patent renewal fee structure comprising the EPO’s internal maintenance fees from years 2 to 5 (a new year 2 fee was proposed as part of the proposals), the renewal fees at a level equivalent to the sum of national renewal fees for years 10 and above and a bridging arrangement in years 6-9 between the amounts in the years 2 to 5 and 10+ regimes. Within this structure, two proposals were put forward, a TOP 4 proposal and a TOP 5 proposal (the latter of these having some concessions in the fees available for SMEs).
As reported elsewhere recently the EPO Select Committee has, following feedback, revised the unitary patent (UP) renewal fee proposals slightly. So, what’s changed? (more…)
Grace Periods: Patent Harmonisation report from UKIPO
The UKIPO website has published an interesting US and UK study on the subject of grace periods.
The report notes that around 30 countries in the world have a grace period (defined in the report as “A period of time, before a patent application for an invention is filed, in which the invention could be disclosed without its novelty being lost”) but that EPC states have no meaningful grace period to speak of.
A handy table summarising available grace periods around the world can be found in Annex 3 of the following report which is referenced in the UKIPO publication. (more…)
Who ya gonna call? (in case of Brexit)
Now that we’ve had the General Election in the UK and the Conservatives have returned to power on their own, it looks like we’ll be getting a referendum asking whether we should stay in the EU or leave (the “hokey-cokey” referendum).
Against this political backdrop IPcopy has become aware of half-heard rumours suggesting that the possibility of the UK exiting the EU could be used in the run-up to the referendum to suggest that UK based European Patent Attorneys are not a safe bet for patent applicants outside Europe. As the story goes, because the UK could be booted out of the EU, this would have some kind of knock on effect on the ability of UK-EPAs to represent effectively at the EPO.
IPcopy would like to point out to anyone that may have heard something similar that this is clearly a load of tosh. (more…)
Coke means Coca-Cola*
On 10 May 2010, Modern Industrial & Trading Investment Co. Ltd (“Mitico”) filed a CTM application for the food and drink classes, 29, 30 and 32, which included “cola flavoured aerated waters”.
On 14 October, Coca-Cola Company (“Coca Cola”) filed an opposition against the application based on four of its earlier figurative CTMs; (more…)
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