The UPC website has the breaking news of the day: The start of the UPC Sunrise Period is postponed for two months until March 1, 2023.
This is time for relief and gratitude. And while today is Mozart’s day of death, I would like to express it in Bach / Picander’s words from the Christmas Oratorio, Part III:
Herrscher des Himmels, erhöre das Lallen,
Laß dir die matten Gesänge gefallen,
Wenn dich dein Zion mit Psalmen erhöht!
Höre der Herzen frohlockendes Preisen,
Wenn wir dir itzo die Ehrfurcht erweisen,
Weil unsre Wohlfahrt befestiget steht!Ruler of heaven, hear our inarticulate speech,
let our faint songs please you,
when your Zion exalts you with psalms!
Hear the exultant praise of our hearts,
as we show our reverence for you
since our welfare is made sure!
Thank you, UPC Preparatory Committee, for hearing the users and doing the right thing!
________________________
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So far so necessary (to prevent complete disaster). Now how about that user manual for the CMS?
In view of this (welcome) delay will the EPO now postpone the launch of its transitional measures for requesting delay of grant and early requests for unitary effect? These had already been announced as starting on 1 January. That announcement now looks like it jumped the gun.
the EPO management jumped the gun anyway, with their unquestioning push in favour of their big non-European applicants. Or the “search for conflicting national prior rights”.
As an organisation build to implement and uphold law, the EPOffice is busying itself a lot with politics, while ignoring its duty to implement and uphold law (i.e. the EPC).
Where’s the preparation announcement for Article 4a EPC, which has been introduced because Europe did not know yet how the EPC would have to look like for the Unitary Patent, so that the experts could look at what the EU did and adapt the EPOrg, EPOffice, and the EPC accordingly.
The right thing would be to simply let us use 2FA instead of obviously lobbying for EU tech suppliers—who can’t even deliver the hardware.
The right thing might even be to accept paper documents. I know, this is so old-fashioned, but I am told it actually works at many courts and patent offices.
Probably my thinking is simply way too simple…
If only they would have allowed European patent attorneys with appropriate qualification to register during the 2 month delay. This would have given a lot of peace of mind, so that opt-outs can be filed without a mandate at the start of the sunrise period. Until now, I haven’t seen any estimate of how long it will take to process the large wave of applications to be put on the list.
Additionally, the EPO and other national smartcards are, in practice, often handed over to paralegals in a lot of patent firms, so that documents can be prepared for online filing. That will not be possible with an EU certification device that allows you to sign in for a wide variety of government/banking/… services. Some kind of authentication restricted to the UPC would be really welcome. Alternatively, some explanation of how an assistant is able to prepare a dossier by uploading files for someone else would be welcome. From my understanding, it seems that the attorney will personally have to log in, upload all the files and sign the submission. That is quite far removed from the current practice in most firms, wherein everything is prepared for filing by an assistant and the attorney only does the final review and signing.