As readers well know, according to article 56 of the European Patent Convention “an invention shall be considered as involving an inventive step if, having regard to the state of the art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the art.” In practice, the application of this article requires factual and legal assessments…
On Friday 22 January 2016, the annual ERA (Academy of European Law) conference on the Unitary Patent took place in Brussels. Regarding the agreement reached on the renewal fees, Clemens Heusch, head of European litigation at Nokia, explained that although Nokia currently has more than 30,000 (!) patent families in its patent portfolio, he finds…
Finland became the ninth country to ratify the UPC Agreement when President Sauli Niinistö signed the law on its ratification on 8th of January 2016. The Parliament approved the ratification in December 2015, following the Judiciary Committee’s report on the 6th of November 2015 and the Constitutional Committee’s report on the 17th of November 2015,…
By Klemens Stratmann Currently, the parties involved in appeal proceedings before the EPO see a clear trend towards decisions rendered on formal grounds. If the patentee files new requests along with the statement setting out the grounds of appeal without sufficiently addressing the decision per se, he runs the risk that the appeal is held…
A recent decision at the UK Intellectual Property Office emphasises again how important it is to establish ownership of rights in inventions (particularly before the first patent application is filed) and to have documentary evidence to support this. The case concerns a dispute between the University of Warwick and one of its employees over the…
The procedure to select judges for the Unified Patent Court (UPC) will start within two months. An announcement and an online application form will be published on the UPC website at the end of February or beginning of March 2016 at the latest. The 2013 call for ‘expressions of interest’ in becoming a judge and…
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board did not err in affirming the rejection of several claims of a patent application directed to a method of enzymatic hydrolysis of soy fiber suitable as a food additive on the ground of obviousness, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has determined (In re Urbanski, January…
The Federal Court of Justice held that claim construction has absolute priority before issues of invalidity, such as the inadmissible extension or issues of patentability of the subject matter, can be discussed. The Court also reiterated that the determination of the subject matter of a patent (the invention) cannot be abandoned with the mere reason…
The Supreme Court stated that decisions dismissing a request for a stay of proceedings that are within the discretion of the court can generally not be contested according to section 192(2) Austrian Code of Civil Procedure (“ACCP”). This general rule does not apply in cases where the law imposes a mandatory stay of the proceedings….
The 23rd edition of the book The Annotated European Patent Convention has been published. The book is updated till 15 November 2015. Some important amendments in this new work: Recently issued Enlarged Board of Appeal decisions: -G1/12: correction of the identity of the appellant is allowed; -G1/13: the EPO recognises the retroactive effect of restoration…
