The concept of plausibility has caused great controversy in European patent law in recent years. It was hoped that the decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO in G 2/21 would bring clarity. Since the referral questions by Board 3.3.02 were very clear and seemed to present reasonable alternatives from which…
In June 2022 the EPO announced the project “Bringing Teams Together”, introducing a new management of office space with the aim “to ensure that teams cluster in our buildings when working on site”. The project proved to be a bit challenging since the EPO management simultaneously intended to empty the Pschorrhöfe 1-4 buildings that had…
In the spirit of Jonathan Swift’s unforgettable Modest Proposal for preventing the Children of Poor People from being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country and for making them beneficial to the Publick, Let us first consider a Modest Proposal of how the European Patent Office could be restructured to achieve • 100% EPO Quality…
The industry has serious concerns about the deteriorating patent quality at the European Patent Office. The issue was discussed earlier this month between the EPO and the Industry Patent Quality Charter, an group representing major international corporations, law firms and patent offices. After their meeting, Beat Weibel, chief IP counsel, group senior vice-president at Siemens…
The EPO has opened its public user consultation on the latest version of the EPC and PCT-EPO Guidelines, which will come into force on 1 March 2023. Users are invited to submit their comments in any of the EPO’s three official languages via an online form by 4 April 2023. The Guidelines for Examination in…
The new and noteworthy decision T 670/20 by Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.07 provides more legal certainty for patentees of formulation patents. The proprietors of pharmaceutical formulation and pharmaceutical use patents do often not have it easy, if and when – as is often the case – they have conducted clinical trials before the priority…
Damocles, so tells us an ancient legend (reported here) was a favorite of President Dionysios II. of Syrakus in Sicily, who lived during the first half of the 4th century BC. His story was succinctly told by none other than Marcus Tullius Cicero in his tusculanae disputationes 5, 61–62. Hoping that Cicero will forgive me,…
An outburst of anger of a president and his re-election, social tensions, industrial actions: for anyone familiar with the world of patents it will be clear that all this refers to the European Patent Office, which drew a lot of attention on the Kluwer Patent Blog last year, even more than the biggest change in…
Video conferences will become the default format of oral opposition proceedings in at the European Patent Office as of 2023. Only under certain circumstances, and when the opposition division permits it, will oral proceedings in opposition be conducted in person. A decision to that effect was announced yesterday, a week after the publication of the final…
As per the EPC definition, a substance or composition that is already known to have been used in a “first medical use” may still be patentable for any second or further use, provided that said use is novel and inventive. Even though the first medical use was the subject of patent protection within the EPC…
