Early certainty in opposition proceedings is clearly a desirable objective, and the President’s commitment to lowering the average duration of (normal) opposition proceedings to 15 months on the…
The current President of the EPO claims in his blog that there is a general demand from the users of the EPO – i.e. primarily the applicants – to have a timely delivery of the work product of the EPO…
How long should proceedings before the EPO ideally take? Admittedly, this is a tricky question because various stakeholders will usually have different interests and thoughts as to what the “right”…
The Dutch Government has warned the social situation at the EPO will have to improve soon. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has complained it is not acceptable that over half of the…
The Board of Appeal decided that the invention was not sufficiently disclosed, as no seeds had been deposited and a skilled person could not obtain the claimed plants on the basis of the information…
The European Patent Office can invoke its immunity from jurisdiction of Dutch courts in its conflict with the EPO trade unions SUEPO and VEOB. The highest court in The Netherlands, the Hoge Raad, has…
Although it did not admit a broader claim 1, an EPO board of appeal allowed an auxiliary request wherein claim 1 as granted was replaced by a combination of independent claims from different first…
Will 2017 be the year that the Unitary Patent system sees the light of day? A year ago the general expectation was for the system to fully launch this spring, with a provisional period starting late…
Not surprisingly the Brexit and its consequences for the Unitary Patent system, but also the continuing social unrest at the European Patent Office were among the most popular topics on the Kluwer…
