Eight years (!) after complaints of dozens of EPO staff members against the way they were treated after having participated in strikes, a final decision in their cases is finally there: former EPO president Benoit Battistelli abused his power in various ways when and after implementing new rules in July 2013 to restrict the rights…
After a delay of almost four years, the route to German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement has been reopened by the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of 23 June 2021, which was published yesterday. The FCC’s rejection of two applications for an interim injunction against the UPCA ratification bills means the German…
Two applications for preliminary injunctions against German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement have been rejected. The German Federal Constitutional Court has announced this in a press release. “Order of 23 June 2021 2 BvR 2216/20, 2 BvR 2217/20 In an order published today, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court rejected two…
“The Annual Review 2020 shows that demand for European patents remained nearly on a par with last year. The Office received a total of 180 250 European patent applications, 0.7% fewer than in 2019. To meet this demand during the pandemic, the EPO accelerated the digitalisation of the patent grant process and extended teleworking to almost all…
It is very unlikely that the new complaints against the Unified Patent Court Agreement, which were filed last December with the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), will delay the Unitary Patent project for two or three more years. Kevin Mooney, partner of Simmons & Simmons and one of the driving forces behind the UPC and…
Although second medical use protection has had limited importance in the treatment of COVID-19, it has put in the spotlight the overall need for quick reactions to new diseases, which is one of the many factors justifying such protection, according to Jochen Bühling, partner of the German law firm of Krieger Mes & Graf v….
(UPDATED) The US has thrown its support behind an initiative at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to temporarily waive intellectual property rights in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Late April rich members of the WTO, including the US, were still blocking the proposal backed by developing countries to suspend these rights for the production of…
The ‘new normal’ at the EPO and more particularly plans to allow oral proceedings by videoconference even if parties don’t want it, have been leading to extensive debate over the last weeks. No less than 47 amicus curiae briefs were filed with the Enlarged Board of Appeal in case G 1/21, where the crucial referral question…
The greatest challenge for IP in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) will be to achieve some level of harmonisation worldwide. IP expert Adam Liberman has said this in the second part of a series of interviews with authors and editors of Kluwer IP Law. Liberman is director IP advantage at Deloitte and adjunct professor at…
The EPO has launched a public consultation on the first draft of its ‘Towards a new normal’ orientation document, discussing the post-covid organisation of the EPO. The document “is designed to complement the EPO’s Strategic Plan 2023, which was adopted in 2019, before the current pandemic. The orientation document represents the EPO’s current assessment of…
