The European Patent Office (EPO) is an organ of the European Patent Organisation, an intergovernmental organisation that was set up on 7 October 1977 on the basis of the European Patent Convention (EPC) signed in Munich in 1973. The EPO is responsible for the uniform procedure to grant European patents. Once the EPO has granted a European patent, the patent holder can validate it in every single contracting state. In the future, the EPO will also be in charge of deciding on requests for unitary effect of European patents under the Unitary Patent system.
The European Patent Office has today published an advance preview of its annual update to the Guidelines for Examination which will come into force on 1 November 2019. This year, there have been some tweaks to sections on how novelty, inventive step and clarity are assessed. The updates also add detail to discussions on formalities…
Despite all uncertainty regarding the future, due to the ongoing Brexit saga and the German constitutional complaint, preparations for the Unitary Patent system are quietly going on. The EPO Select Committee gathered information on national measures accompanying the implementation of the system which was distributed among members of the Committee this summer. Also, the epi…
A claim to a device will be denied patentability under Art. 53(c) EPC if it can only be produced through the exercise of a surgical method step. A European patent was granted for a device for the desynchronization of activity of pathologically active brain areas. Specifically, the claim defined ‘control means, which are designed such…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from April, May and June. Top 3 Kluwer Copyright…
The Administrative Council of the European Patent Office unanimously adopted the EPO’s Strategic Plan 2023 during the AC meeting earlier this week in Munich. According to an announcement published on the EPO website today, president António Campinos said: ‘This Strategic Plan is a clear vision of how we want our Office to look in the…
Late in 2018, Board 3.5.07 issued two decisions on appeals from Examining Division decisions, in which the length of the examination procedure was excessive. The Board decided that such delays can amount to a substantial procedural violation, but that it is only equitable to reimburse the appeal fee if the applicant took some proactive measures…
A strike at the EPO, which was to be held during the meeting of the Administrative Council in Munich later this week, has been called off. The EPO’s trade union SUEPO had submitted a call for a strike, which would have been the first one since Campinos took office last year, ‘after a rather disappointing…
The SUEPO trade union has called for a strike in all EPO sites around the next Administrative Council’s meeting in June. ‘Almost one year after the arrival as Mr. Campinos as President of the EPO, we note with regret that the social situation hasn’t improved and that none of the root causes of the many…
One of the deepest insights in moral philosophy is provided by Erich Kästner’s short rhyme „Es gibt nichts Gutes. Außer man tut es.“ (There’s nothing good. Unless you do it.), which became one of the most cited proverbs in German. Mind Kästner’s original punctuation. In the first sentence, he expressed fundamental skepticism that there is…
Not too long ago we learned of a referral question from Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.03 regarding the legal basis for holding oral proceedings before the Boards of Appeal in Haar rather than in Munich. While it does not directly relate to the legal question in the referral, a relevant consideration was recently published in…
