Another constitutional complaint against the Unified Patent Court Agreement? Is Italy withdrawing from the UPC? If even April fools’ day doesn’t go by without a proportion of jokes on the Unitary Patent project, one can be certain that after years of stagnation the Unified Patent Court and the Unitary Patent are fully back on the…
The European Patent Office (EPO) received 188 600 applications in 2021, up 4.5% on the previous year and the highest number to date, according to the EPO’s Patent Index 2021. Patent filings rebounded after a slight dip in 2020. “Digital communication (+9.4% compared with 2020) narrowly overtook medical technology (+0.8%) as the field with the largest number of European…
The trade union SUEPO has claimed the strike it called for during the meeting of the Administrative Council on 22 March 2022 was a ‘striking success’. According to a statement it sent to its members two days after the strike, 1.514 employees representing 24,45% of all staff participated in the strike, including 28,63% of staff…
The Administrative Committee of the Unified Patent Court has been inaugurated. It will replace the UPC Preparatory Committee, which has so far been in charge of preparations for the new court. An Advisory Committee has been appointed as well, which will interview candidate judges, a process which is expected to start late March. The inaugural…
Members of the trade union of the European Patent Office, SUEPO, have voted for industrial action, including ‘work to rule’, ‘go slow’, and a strike on 22 March 2022 during the meeting of the Administrative Council. They SUEPO members demand the restoration of fundamental rights at the EPO and the suspension or reversal of major…
The EPO violated the fundamental right of free association of its staff in 2014 by giving (former) president Benoit Battistelli the power to determine the detailed conditions relating to the staff committee elections. The Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization (ILOAT) has ruled this in its judgment 4482, which was published after its 133d…
The recruitment of judges for the Unified Patent Court will start soon, now that the Preparatory Phase preceding the opening of the Unified Patent Court has officially begun. According to the UPC Preparatory Committee the preparatory phase will last at least eight months. The UPC Preparatory Committee stated on its website: “Austria was the first…
What were the most popular articles of the Kluwer Patent Blog in 2021? Some topics keep on returning, but new issues found their way into the chart of best read posts on this blog as well. The number ten of 2021 is the blogpost Technicality at EPO After G 1/19. This article comments on the…
Due to recent developments in Germany, Slovenia and Austria, where parliaments gave their support to the Protocol for Provisional Application of the Unified Patent Court Agreement, it is likely that after many years of delay the new Court will open its doors in 2022 and also the Unitary Patent will finally see the light of…
Austria will most likely become the member state which will trigger the start of the preparatory phase of the Unitary Patent project. Last Friday the National Council, one of the chambers of its parliament, unanimously approved draft legislation enabling Austria to ratify Protocol for Provisional Application (PPA) of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. Ratification of…
