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Unitary Patent Package – The Ratification Game (Malta Ratifies the UPC Agreement)
Update (10 December 2014)
According to the website of the Council of the European Union, Malta deposited its instrument of ratification on 9 December 2014 to become the sixth country to complete its ratification formalities. Malta joins Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, France and Austria as one of the six countries who have completed their ratification processes.
Now that Malta has joined the “ratification” group it means that the “Malta Problem”, which is discussed in depth here, will kick in once the unitary patent system is up and running. In a nutshell, no European patent application filed before 1 March 2007, and which is still pending, will be eligible to become a unitary patent (assuming it grants after the unitary patent system goes live).
Recent unitary patent themed seminars have given the impression that additional UPC ratifications in 2014 were unexpected so this news is something of a surprise. However, we had heard suggestions back in January this year that Malta might have ratified. If the news story we picked up on earlier in the year was correct then presumably Malta delayed depositing its instrument of ratification for nearly a year for some reason.
IPcopy’s ratification infographic has been updated to reflect the news from Malta (for an answer to the question “What’s up with this infographic?“, please see the bottom of the post!”).
Unitary patent: 17th Draft of Rules of Procedure – What’s changed?
The 17th draft of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court Agreement appeared online recently in advance of the oral hearing in Trier tomorrow (26 November 2014). We’ve taken a quick look over the changes to highlight a few points that have changed. (more…)
Unitary patent: News Nuggets (November 2014)
Today we have a few nuggets of unitary patent and UPC news from around the web. In the post below we have an update on the state of German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement, a reference to the European Patent Litigation Certificate in IPReg’s UK patent attorney exam proposals and we also highlight a couple of recent articles on the Kluwer Patent Blog that discussed unitary patent renewal fee progress and the possibility of a pro-patent bias in the UPC. (more…)
Unitary patent: Spain stops play?
On Monday we posted an update on the progress of the two actions before the CJEU from Spain in respect of the Unitary Patent Package (short summary: the Advocate General’s decision has been delayed). We subsequently received a notice from Dr Ingve Stjerna relating to his latest paper on the unitary patent (Regular readers will be aware that Dr Stjerna has written a number of articles on the unitary patent system which can be accessed here). (more…)
Implementing the Unitary Patent provisions in the UK – the unclear scope of the software directive on UK patent infringement
The UK recently held a consultation relating to the implementation of the Unified Patent Court Agreement and the two unitary patent regulations into UK law. One of the suggested changes was the addition of some new defences to patent infringement in section 60(5) of the Patents Act. (more…)
Unitary patent: Danish Referendum – “Yes” vote
Yesterday, 25th May 2014, Denmark held a referendum on joining the Unified Patent Court. Out of just over 2.3 million votes cast, 62.5% voted in favour of joining the Unified Patent Court. The Danish parliament is now free to complete ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement and, eventually, deposit its instrument of ratification with the EU Commission. Currently only Austria and France have made such a deposit.
The Wikipedia page covering the Danish referendum is here. Commissioner Barnier also issued a Press Release in which he stated: (more…)
Unitary patent system – Scuttlebutt*
There’s not been much hard news recently regarding the unitary patent system so we’re going to take a leaf out of the 24 Hour Rolling News Playbook and start speculating away until something actually happens again….. (more…)
IP Bill becomes the Intellectual Property Act 2014
[Update 19.5.2014: the Intellectual Property Act 2014 has now appeared on the legislation.gov.uk website and can be accessed here]
The Intellectual Property Bill left the “ping pong” stage last month after the House of Lords approved the amendments made to the Bill by the House of Commons. Yesterday evening, the IP Bill received Royal Assent to pass into law as the Intellectual Property Act 2014 (House of Lords Hansard; Parliament (Intellectual Property Act 2014)).
As noted on the Department for Business Innovation and Skills website it is expected that some measures within the Act will come into force in October 2014, with all the measures being implemented by late 2015. (more…)
Unitary patent system – Nuggets of News (May 2014)
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 of the progress of ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement in Belgium, two patent bills in Sweden, a statement from the EPO’s Economic and Scientific Advisory Board (ESAB) on the unitary patent package and the Brussels I regulation. (more…)
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