The European Patent Office (EPO) is an organ of the European Patent Organisation, an intergovernmental organisation that was set up on 7 October 1977 on the basis of the European Patent Convention (EPC) signed in Munich in 1973. The EPO is responsible for the uniform procedure to grant European patents. Once the EPO has granted a European patent, the patent holder can validate it in every single contracting state. In the future, the EPO will also be in charge of deciding on requests for unitary effect of European patents under the Unitary Patent system.
Case reported and summarised by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP
The UK does not operate a system of automatically staying proceedings which concern validity of a European patent where there are ongoing…
President Benoît Battistelli of the European Patent Office (EPO), criticized for his harsh leadership, has survived the meeting of the supervisory Administrative Council (AC), but he has been put…
Case reported and summarised by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP
Mr Justice Carr has issued an interesting interim judgment regarding the jurisdiction of the English Court to grant negative declarations…
The longstanding social unrest at the European Patent Office (EPO) seems to be heading for a climax. After years of tensions and conflicts with the trade unions, Boards of Appeal and others, EPO…
In a decision to refund an additional search fee, an EPO board rejected a determination of non-unity based on a priori technical differences, which determined different problems solved by different…
In a recent PI case decided by the Danish Maritime & Commercial Court (MCC), the Court ruled on the several aspects pertaining to the presumption of validity of a granted patent together with…
An EPO board considered the burden of proof of public prior use when the invention had been publicly visible only for a short period of time. The Board required proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a…
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…
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…