As William Blake put it in Auguries of Innocence, written in 1803 but not published until 1863, “A Robin Redbreast in a cage, puts all heaven in a rage”. So did the ill-crafted concept of plausibility with the case law of the EPO’s Technical Boards of Appeal (TBA). It introduced an artificial cage that trapped…
This piece deals with the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), addresses key concerns about the risk of unenforceability of PMAC arbitral awards, and proposes three implementable solutions. Competence and Enforcement of UPC and PMAC final decisions The PMAC, established by Article 35 UPC Agreement, can administer mediation and…
The extent of the problems with the content management system took the Unified Patent Court by surprise. Alexander Ramsay, registrar of the Court and former chairman of the UPC’s preparatory committee, has said this in an interview with Kluwer IP Law. According to Ramsay, the court is working hard and spending a lot of resources…
It took longer to arrive than expected but here it is. The UK Courts have been given an opportunity to depart from the jurisprudence of the CJEU in their interpretation of the SPC Regulation. The opportunity has arisen in the following way. In December 2023 the English High Court dismissed an appeal by Merck against…
The European Parliament supports the introduction of a full ban on patents for all plants produced by certain New Genomic Techniques (NGT), plant material, parts thereof, genetic information and process features they contain. The ban, part of a proposal to introduce two different categories of NGT plants, got support in a vote today. The provision…
The SPC reform which is currently undergoing the legislative procedure in the European Union has taken a further decisive step forward, as the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI Committee) has approved an amended version of the draft text of the four new EU regulations on SPCs for medicinal and plant protection products as…
Opt-outs are dealt with in Part IV of the UPC Agreement entitled “Transitional Provisions”. The prevailing view is that these provisions should be interpreted to mean that an opted-out patent is no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the UPC and the opt out shall remain in place for the lifetime of the patent. Furthermore,…
From the potpourri of decisions that the Swiss Federal Supreme Court handed down last year, I have selected one in subjective hindsight that I consider to be particularly relevant regarding further cases. The outcome of most decisions of the Swiss Federal Patent Court in 2023 heavily depended on the specific circumstances and the effects of…
From 1 April 2024, the European Patent Office will increase most official fees by around 4%. The first two renewal fees, in respect of the third and fourth years, will also see significant rises of 30% in an effort to offset revenue lost as a result of the EPO reducing application pendency time. Hand in…
Italy and the Unified Patent Court signed an agreement last week to formalize their cooperation on bringing the third seat of the UPC central division to Milan. As was announced in a press release of the Italian ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation, the agreement was signed on behalf of Italy by the director…
