30th Nov 2015
There are currently two cases before the UK High Court concerning standard-essential patents (SEPs) and FRAND1 licences. Although these cases do not directly follow from the Court of Justice of the European Union Decision in Huawei Technologies v ZTE2 in July 2015, they raise some interesting points with regard to FRAND defences and royalty rates […]
30th Nov 2015
On 1 November 2014, the European Patent Office (EPO) introduced the PCT Direct service. Under the service, a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application using the EPO as the international searching authority, and claiming priority from an earlier application that has been searched by the EPO, can be filed along with comments responding to any objections […]
27th Nov 2015
It is often said that prevention is better than cure, and this is certainly the case when it comes to correcting mistakes that make it into a granted patent specification. When the European Patent Office (EPO) intends to grant a European patent, they issue a Rule 71(3) communication which includes a copy of the text […]
26th Nov 2015
Much has been said about the impact of the Alice v CLS US Supreme Court decision on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions and especially ‘fintech’ inventions in the US. Since then it has become harder, but not impossible, to obtain US granted patents in this space. However, in practice, and unexpectedly, the decision has provided […]
20th Nov 2015
Earlier in the year, we reported a referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal from the Technical Board of Appeal (T 557/13) on the issue of poisonous priority. The questions to the Enlarged Board have now been finalised, and are as follows: Where a claim of a European patent application or patent encompasses alternative subject-matters […]
12th Nov 2015
The current UK Patent Box will close its lid to new entries at of the end of June 2016. On 22 October 2015, the UK Government published a consultation document proposing changes to the design of the Patent Box. The proposed changes are to ensure that it complies with the new international framework for preferential tax […]
9th Nov 2015
The Off-patent Drugs Bill was effectively blocked on 6 November 2015, when a Conservative health minister spoke for twenty-seven minutes to “filibuster” the Bill, so it ran out of time. The Bill was designed to make potentially significant new treatments more available to patients, and improve efficiency within the NHS. An existing drug may be […]
6th Nov 2015
The Off-patent Drugs Bill is set to have its second reading debate on 6 November 2015. The Bill is discussed in a previous post and has now been published together with the explanatory notes and a briefing paper. Section 3 of the Bill provides for regulations which may specify “further requirements” that would need to be […]