The European Patent Office (EPO) is an organ of the European Patent Organisation, an intergovernmental organisation that was set up on 7 October 1977 on the basis of the European Patent Convention (EPC) signed in Munich in 1973. The EPO is responsible for the uniform procedure to grant European patents. Once the EPO has granted a European patent, the patent holder can validate it in every single contracting state. In the future, the EPO will also be in charge of deciding on requests for unitary effect of European patents under the Unitary Patent system.
The decision of the European Patent Office to start holding videoconferences as the standard way of conducting oral proceedings in examination and opposition proceedings is facing heavy criticism. There has been no testing, no consultation, the EPO doesn’t have the facilities, it may be discriminatory and in violation of Article 113(1) EPC, according to the…
The EPO’s biennial fee increases come into force on 1 April 2020 and include a 20% hike of the appeal fee. At the same time, new appeal fee refund provisions are being introduced through an amendment to Rule 103 EPC. These are intended to encourage appellants to continuously review whether to continue or withdraw their…
While real news about one of the most popular topics of this blog, i.e. the UPC, is rare and no one following our blogs regularly (see e.g. 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019) should be greatly surprised about the UK’s decision to back out of the Unitary Patent System, the EPO continues to be a source…
Two decisions T 0184/17 and T 0603/14 were recently issued concerning admissibility of late inventive step attacks on appeal. Both cases were decided under the old Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal (RPBA), but will likely still be relevant under the increased procedural stringency of the new RPBA. T 0184/17 – A Tea…
T1687/17 is an early example of what an abridged decision under the new Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal (RPBA) looks like: very short and published only a week after the oral proceedings, thereby also being timely in accordance with Art. 15(9) RPBA. The current RPBA contain new provisions allowing the Boards to…
Patent Attorneys like myself are not known for their love of excitement. For example, I like reading lists. One regrettably exciting item that appears to have slipped off the ‘things to look out for in 2020’ lists that I have seen is the outcome of the constitutional complaints against the EPO in Germany. The outcome…
The December issue 4|2019 of the journal epi Information contains four interesting contributions to the discussion on the novelty test for sub-ranges as used by the EPO. The EPO has a special novelty test to determine whether a claimed numerical sub-range of a known broad range is novel over the known range. A sub-range must…
President António Campinos of the European Patent Office, the Chair of the EPO Unitary Patent Select Committee and members of the UPC Preparatory Committee met today to discuss the implementation of the Unitary Patent package. According to an EPO report, the meeting “came after the judge in charge of a complaint that had been lodged…
A post on the new guidelines for examination of the European Patent Office tops the list of most popular articles of the Kluwer Patent Blog in 2019. The enduring social problems at the EPO led to a series of well read blogposts as well; the leadership change at the organisation has unfortunately not led to…
One of the key questions in the assessment of inventive step within the EPO is whether or not the skilled person will adapt or modify the teaching of the closest prior art and arrive at the invention. The EPO answers this question using the so-called could-would approach developed in the early decision T2/83 of a…
