by Dr Mark A G Jones The UK’s Intellectual Property Act 2014, enacted to implement recommendations of the 2011 Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property, has extended the powers available to the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) to revoke British patents of its own motion. This applies both to patents granted directly by the UKIPO…
Under the new PCT Direct initiative announced in the Official Journal, it will, from 1 November 2014, be possible to respond to objections raised by the EPO against the priority application on filing the international application. This significantly streamlines the process of applying for an international application, and essentially gives the applicant an extra opportunity in the International Phase to overcome objections already raised by the EPO against the priority application, by submitting arguments or modifications with the international application.
Although more than 20 years have passed since the Enlarged Board of Appeal issued its decision G 1/92, there is still little case law which provides guidance on how to establish the structure and properties of a particular medicament in a manner so as to be able to rely on the same as a piece…
In its decision of 7 August 2014 (docket no. I-2 U 91/13 – ‘Garage Roller Door’), the Higher Regional Court Dusseldorf granted a non-using patent co-owner a right to compensation from the other co-owner that uses the patent and profits from this use. The parties are competitors in the field of manufacturing and selling garage…
To the extent that summer 2014 existed at all in central Europe, experts agree that it is now definitely over. There is some controversy whether we ever had summer in Germany this year, but at least it was proven that life without air conditioning is possible. Meanwhile, the Munich IP Community is busily preparing for…
In the oral proceedings held in the EPO appeal case T 1760/11 the Board of Appeal (BoA) 3.3.01 selected one single closest prior art (CPA) document for the inventive step assessment and then denied the opponents the opportunity to present inventive step attacks starting from other CPAs. Petitions for review under Article 112a EPC were…
The Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf has ruled in its decision of 20 March 2014 (docket number 12 W 8.14) that an explicit allegation of entitlement to a national part of a European patent, e.g. by sending a warning letter or the filing of a court action, does not include an implicit allegation of entitlement (stillschweigende…
1 Introduction Reports that say there’s — that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know that we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But…
Suppose you have an invention that resides in using a known substance in a known dosage for a known purpose, and your only distinguishing feature is that you apply a particular therapeutic measure after the administration of your substance. Can such a post-administration therapeutic measure, which is in essence a method of treatment, establish patentability…
The European Commission has adopted new competition rules for the assessment of technology-transfer agreements. The revised Block Exemption Regulation for Technology-Transfer Agreements (EU) 316/2014 (“TTBER”), and the accompanying Guidelines (OJ, 2014/C 89/03) entered into force on May 1, 2014. The general structure and most of the provisions have in substance remained unchanged compared to the…
