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.
Breaking News: The President of the Boards of Appeal and the President of the Office jointly propose to the Administrative Council to re-locate the Boards of Appeal from Haar to the building Pschorr-Höfe 7 in Munich, owned by the EPO, as of 2025/2026. While this pretty spectacular U-turn still has to be confirmed by the…
1. The established approach of applying the due-care criterion to the question of removal of the cause of non-compliance under Rule 136 EPC leads to an additional admissibility requirement, by expanding the scope of the substantive due-care criterion, which has no basis in the EPC. 2. Removal of the cause of non-compliance is a question…
The Enlarged Board of Appeal has now issued its long-awaited full decision in case G 1/21. Readers can access it here. The decision deserves a few comments. The Enlarged Board’s advance publication of the order of the decision in July was viewed by many as a sort of cliffhanger. This was because the question answered…
Two months after a series of ILOAT judgments stating that former EPO president Benoit Battistelli abused his power by implementing new rules to restrict the rights of staff members to strike in 2013, the EPO has detailed in which way it intends to carry out the judgments. According to a SUEPO report, EPO president António…
Although the grounds of the decision under R. 111(2) EPC do not have to deal in detail with all the arguments of the parties, at least the key points of discussion must be addressed. The grounds must respond to the relevant facts, evidence and arguments and contain the logical chain that led to the formation…
A change in the composition of the Examining Division is legally allowed. This does not jeopardize the right to be heard and to a fair trial. The ‘equality of arms’ is not hampered by the introduction in a late stage of examination and in particular during the oral proceedings before the Examining Division, of new…
In 2020 Grünecker, Hoffmann Eitle, Dehns, Marks and Clerk and Vossius and Partner were the numbers 1 to 5 of a list based on the number of issued B1 patents where these firms were listed as the address for service on the EPO register. Company inhouse departments are included in the chart; Siemens has the…
In an open letter to EPO president António Campinos, trade union SUEPO has called for an execution of the recent judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization (ILOAT) concerning restrictions on the right to strike at the EPO. In a series of judgments the ILOAT ruled that the legal framework which was…
In its much-awaited decision in case G 1/21, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO has evaded to answer the high-profile question whether videoconferencing against the will of (one of) the parties is compatible with the right to oral proceedings. Last March (case T 1807/15), a technical board of the EPO had referred the…
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…
