20th Dec 2013
We’ve all heard the song (too?) many times, but what would happen if Santa entered the UK on his sleigh which included an invention protected by a granted patent in force only in the UK? Would you be able to stop him? Firstly, you would have to try to catch Santa and his sleigh to […]
18th Dec 2013
The UK’s Patent Box came into force in April 2013 and allows companies to reduce the corporation tax payable on profits attributable to a granted UK, or other qualifying, patent. The UK Patent Box has now been referred, after a request from one of the EU Member States, to the EU commission in relation to […]
16th Dec 2013
Art. 123(2) EPC requires that a European patent application or patent must not be amended in such a way that it contains subject-matter that extends beyond the content of the application as filed. In what has often been perceived as an increasingly strict interpretation of the added subject matter provisions, it is not uncommon for […]
12th Dec 2013
The World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) has recently launched a new initiative to encourage the development of environmentally sustainable solutions addressing climate change. The initiative is called WIPO Green and it is an online market place seeking to connect parties who have technology solutions to environmental, climate or sustainable problems with parties seeking solutions to […]
9th Dec 2013
The Enlarged Board of Appeal (“EBA”) of the European Patent Office (EPO) is hearing a referral from a Technical Board of Appeal (“TBA”) in case G2/13 (also known as “Broccoli II”) concerning the patentability of plants obtained using essentially biological process steps. Third parties were invited to submit comments to the EBA by the end […]
6th Dec 2013
There has been much in the press, often misleading, about the new generic top level domains (gTLDS) which are going to be released shortly. A particular point of confusion has been the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) launched earlier this year by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The TMCH has two primary functions; […]
2nd Dec 2013
In an effort to tackle poor understanding of IP rights, the UK IPO has recently launched a range of online support tools designed to help businesses identify and manage their intellectual property assets. The recent additions are IP Basics, IP Equip and the IP Equip app. IP Basics provides free online guides for understanding the […]