28th Oct 2013
On 1st October 2013 the Patents County Court (“PCC”) saw its name changed to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (“IPEC”). The change reflects the fact that the Court’s jurisdiction covers a wide range of intellectual property matters including trade marks, designs, and copyright as well as patents. The IPEC now sits as a specialist listing […]
21st Oct 2013
On Friday, the European Patent Office announced a decision to repeal the 2 year time limit for filing divisional applications. Steve Howe has reviewed the background to the introduction of the 2 year time limit, the reasons for the EPO’s change of heart, and the implications of the change in practice going forward. The New […]
14th Oct 2013
In a world where official fees seem to rise relentlessly, the US Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO) appears to be bucking the trend; recently announcing that certain fees are set to decrease on 1st January 2014. The fee reductions include the issue, or grant, fees for “utility”, design and plant patents applications, and are […]
11th Oct 2013
Austria has become the first European Union state to ratify the Unitary Patent Package, having deposited its ratification instrument on 7 August 2013. As yet, none of the other EU member states have followed suit. The present ratification status of the proposed Unitary Patent Package can be viewed on line here. For the Unitary Patent […]
7th Oct 2013
Earlier this year, we reported on the European Patent Office’s (EPO) online patent database Espacenet, and its ability to provide on-the-fly machine translations of a wide range of published patent documents. This function of Espacenet (known as PatentTranslate) has been steadily expanding and currently provides free translation of patent documents from, and into, English for […]
4th Oct 2013
The last decade or so has seen an increasing shift from government owned space ventures to a rapidly growing commercial space sector. The Ansari X Prize competition, won in 2004 by Scaled Composite’s SpaceShipOne, demonstrated that the prospect of significant financial return can encourage competition between commercial space companies, despite the enormous financial outlay required […]
1st Oct 2013
We are pleased to announce that Reddie & Grose LLP has been ranked as one of the UK’s tier one patent attorney firms in the 2013 Legal 500 rankings. The Legal 500 is an annual ranking of legal services providers from more than 100 countries. After undertaking a rigorous interview and research process with clients, […]