Article 118 of the EPC (entitled "Unity of the European patent application or European patent") states that:
"[...] the text of the application or patent shall be uniform for all designated…
One of the tricky consequences of Article 64 of the European Patent Convention ("EPC"), which establishes that the European patent is immediately enforceable after its publication, and Article 99,…
The board refused to apply Rule 56 EPC (filing missing drawings) to allow replacement of a poor quality drawing in a patent application by a drawing from the priority document. Although J2/12 had…
Competence of the Dutch courts is determined solely based on facts furnished by plaintiff. Jurisdiction for patent entitlement claims is governed by the Protocol on Recognition to the EPC, not by the…
No, not what you might perhaps have hoped for. A lot is currently ongoing at the European Patent Office about the status, the independence, the future location and the (self-)administration of the…
The German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, FCJ) has issued the decision “Bildstrom” (judgment of 26 February 2015, docket no. X ZR 37/13) dealing with the patentability of a system and a…
An EPO board held that observations filed by third parties during inter parte appeal must be disregarded by the board, unless they concern amendments during opposition or appeal, in which case the…
A panel of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO rejected a request to replace the EBA chairman for suspected partiality. The reasons for allowing such a request in decision R19/12 had since…
In March 2015 the European Patent Office presented two proposals to the Select Committee for the level of renewal fees of the future Unitary Patent. The proposals were presented as the “Top 4” and …
