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IPcopy’s summer round up
The summer holiday period is coming to an end, the kids are heading back to school and for the first time in weeks there’s actually a full complement of co-workers in your office. IPcopy has been ticking away during the summer season and, just in case you weren’t checking our updates when you were on the beach, here’s a round-up of our posts from mid July through August.
Unitary patent: News nuggets (August 2014)
Things in unitary patent preparation land are beginning to slow down a little as we head into the summer season. Things will no doubt pick up again in the autumn but in the meantime here’s some nuggets of news to keep you going. (more…)
EPO – Rules relating to Unitary Patent Protection
The EPO Select Committee approved the Rules relating to unitary patent protection on 24 June. A copy of these rules has appeared online and is discussed below.
During a session of the recent “Unitary patent and Unified patent court” seminar held in Paris, Jerome Debrulle (Chair EPO Select Committee) indicated that the Select Committee had approved the rules that will be used to administer the unitary patent. IPcopy had not seen a copy of these rules at the time of our conference review post but now, thanks to reader Hans van Tongeren, we have been pointed towards what appears to be the latest version of the rules, which can be found on the Bristows website here.
The EPO’s rules document runs to over 80 pages and there is also a 40+ page Annex which highlights the changes from the previous version of the rules. An overview of the structure of the rules document is provided below along with some “highlights” from the rules themselves.
Unitary patent system & EPO strikes – answers from the European Parliament
Back in June IPcopy noted that there were three questions pending in front of the European Parliament from Marc Tarabella (Member of the European Parliament – see his biography here) that related to the unitary patent system. There was also a fourth question regarding relations between the EPO and the EU from another Member of the EU Parliament.
Answers to these questions were recently posted and are highlighted below.
European Patent Litigation Certificate – Response to Consultation
The Legal Working Group of the Preparatory Committee has recently launched a consultation on their proposals for the European Patent Litigation Certificate. The consultation timeframe is relatively short and runs until Friday 25 July 2014. Comments are to submitted electronically to secretariat@unified-patent-court.org. The consultation document can be found here and an explanatory memorandum can be found here.
At a recent CIPA seminar The Hon Mr Justice Birss suggested that the best way to influence the Prep Committee’s position on the content and form of the EPLC would be to present a united front with other countries in Europe. To that end IPcopy would be interested to hear from readers in other countries, e.g. Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, regarding their reaction to the content of the EPLC proposal. Additionally if any reader wants to share their response to the consultation then IPcopy will be happy to start a consultation round-up post.
The comments below form the basis of this ipcopywriter’s response to the EPLC consultation. These are personal views.
Unitary patent and Unified patent court – Conference Review (Part III)
This post covers the afternoon sessions from the “Unitary patent and the Unified patent court” conference in Paris on 4 July. This post covers a session from a number of European judges on the UPC and views from some IP intensive companies (such as Google, Microsoft and GSK). [Part I and Part II cover sessions (1) through (4).] (more…)
Unitary patent and Unified patent court – Conference Review (Part II)
As noted yesterday, I attended the 2nd annual conference on the “Unitary patent and Unified patent court” held in Paris on 4 July. The report of the early morning sessions ((1) and (2)) from this conference can be found in yesterday’s post. Today’s post takes in the sessions ((3) and (4)) between the mid-morning break and lunch (Ratification update and a keynote speech from Margot Fröhlinger). (more…)
Unitary patent and Unified patent court – Conference Review (Part I)
Last week on 4 July I had the good fortune to attend the 2nd annual conference on the “Unitary patent and Unified patent court” held in Paris.
The strapline for the conference was “The Patent Revolution is ON” which was an effort to highlight the most significant change in European patent law in 40 years or so. In reality, as many of the panelists were keen to point out, the unitary patent system represents a modification of the existing systems and should be perhaps viewed as an evolution rather than revolution.
There was a significant amount of ground covered at the one day event and many of the panelists at the conference are people who are actually involved in bringing the new patent system into being. We had judges from around Europe as well as members of the both the EPO Select Committee and the Preparatory Committee.
Given the ground covered I’m going to go session by session to highlight the issues that were discussed. (more…)
Unitary patent: Spanish Challenge Update
As reported here previously, Spain is challenging both of the regulations that create the unitary patent. The CJEU heard the action brought by Spain on 1 July 2014 and a report of the hearing has popped up on an Allen & Overy eAlert (Luisa Deas from A&O was at the CJEU hearing).
The full report from Allen & Overy can be found here but a few notable points are highlighted below. (more…)
Unitary patent system & EPO strikes – questions in the European Parliament
Marc Tarabella is a Member of the European Parliament (see his biography here). Back in October 2013, he asked a question of the Commission relating to the possibility that “patent trolls” could soon arrive en masse in Europe thanks to the incoming unitary patent system. As noted on IPKat this question resulted in a slightly sniffy response from Commissioner Barnier which started by saying “The Commission fails to see how the recent Union legislation on patents, namely Regulations 1257/2012 and 1260/2012, could increase the activity of so called ‘patent trolls’ in Europe.”
It would seem Mr Tarabella has not been put off by the previous response he received and he’s recently asked more questions about the unitary patent system. It should be noted that Mr Tarabella generally appears to be something of a Parliamentary Questions Factory with, currently, 1229 questions on various topics to his name!
All three of Mr Tarabella’s questions were asked on 17 April 2014. (more…)
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