Background In 2019, the European Patent Office (EPO) set out its Strategic Plan 2023, detailing a series of proposed updates and reforms to its working practices, including changes to its IT systems. At that time, nobody could have predicted just how quickly the EPO...
The EPO’s longstanding requirement for applicants of European patent applications to amend the description to bring this into conformity with the allowed claims before the EPO will grant a patent on the application has been the subject of much scrutiny over the last...
We reported in our article of October 2022 that the UPC Preparatory team had published its “Implementation roadmap” for bringing the European Union’s Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (the “UPC Agreement”) into force early next year. Specifically, it was expected...
In February 2022 we reported on the Written Decision issued in T 116/18, which confirmed the scope of the referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the European Patent Office (EPO) regarding the use of post-published evidence for establishing a technical...
This case concerned an appeal from a decision of the Opposition Division to maintain an opposed patent in amended form (European Patent No. EP2876903). During the Opposition Proceedings the Opponent filed prior-art document D17 in response to the Patentee’s reply to...
As mentioned in our articles of June 2022 regarding unitary patents and the Unified Patent Court, the European Union has in recent years laid the groundwork for a single patent having effect across many of the EU Member States, as well as a new court for enforcing...
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