Executive version: Quite a few scholars have tried to decipher the hymn sheet shown on Elias Haussmann’s famous portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach. This blog tries to decipher the latest changes in the EPO Management just announced by the President. On a peaceful, sunny morning as we had it today I sometimes indulge in the…
What were the most popular articles of the Kluwer Patent Blog in 2021? Some topics keep on returning, but new issues found their way into the chart of best read posts on this blog as well. The number ten of 2021 is the blogpost Technicality at EPO After G 1/19. This article comments on the…
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…
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…
“The Annual Review 2020 shows that demand for European patents remained nearly on a par with last year. The Office received a total of 180 250 European patent applications, 0.7% fewer than in 2019. To meet this demand during the pandemic, the EPO accelerated the digitalisation of the patent grant process and extended teleworking to almost all…
The ‘new normal’ at the EPO and more particularly plans to allow oral proceedings by videoconference even if parties don’t want it, have been leading to extensive debate over the last weeks. No less than 47 amicus curiae briefs were filed with the Enlarged Board of Appeal in case G 1/21, where the crucial referral question…
The EPO has launched a public consultation on the first draft of its ‘Towards a new normal’ orientation document, discussing the post-covid organisation of the EPO. The document “is designed to complement the EPO’s Strategic Plan 2023, which was adopted in 2019, before the current pandemic. The orientation document represents the EPO’s current assessment of…
