There has long been a desire for patent rights to be pan-European. This project has been ongoing for decades with many fits and starts, but a new system has been built and is scheduled to begin operation at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023. This new system is...
What is a unitary patent? Traditionally, when a European patent is granted by the European Patent Office (EPO), it is validated individually in each EPC contracting state of interest to the applicant/proprietor. Each of those contracting states is then responsible for...
Background It has long been the EPO’s practice to require an Applicant of a European patent application to amend the description to bring this into conformity with the claims once these are allowed by the Examiner. Articles 84 EPC, Rule 42(1)(c) EPC, and Rule 48(1)(c)...
Background Following T 1989/18, many applicants of European patents were of the view that Examining (and Opposition) Divisions could no longer require them to amend the descriptions of their applications prior to grant, so that they conform with the claims. By...
Overview T 0013/20 concerns the refusal of a patent application with a priority date in July 2004, where the relevant citation is D2: W.E. Ryan: “An Introduction to LDPC Codes”, XP002336953, pp. 1-23. A date of “August 19, 2003” – i.e. before the priority...
The EPO has introduced new versions of the Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office and the Guidelines for Search and Examination at the EPO as PCT Authority. Both sets of Guidelines took effect on 1 March 2022, as part of the EPO’s regular two-yearly...
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