30th Sep 2016
If you file UK patent applications or have commercial operations based in the UK, then you should take note of Patent Rules changes to be implemented by the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO), in most cases from 1 October 2016. These rules concern some of the detailed requirements which must be met for a patent […]
27th Sep 2016
The question of priority entitlement usually comes up in the following manner: “I am disclosing my new invention tomorrow, can I just fill in a form to file an application at the Patent Office?” The answer, of course, is no. There is then a frantic dash to file a patent application that will provide at […]
26th Sep 2016
Some confusion was definitely felt this week when a story broke on news websites1,2 across the world that a man had ‘patented’ a Hamdog – a bread bun that can accommodate both a burger and a hot dog sausage. It seemed inconceivable that the US Patent Office (USPTO) had accepted that a new shape of […]
22nd Sep 2016
At the end of June 2016 the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the validity of a computer-implemented patent owned by BASCOM Global Internet Services. This is the fourth such ruling from the Federal Circuit since the Alice Corp vs CLS Bank International decision in 2014 and appears to identify a […]
19th Sep 2016
“No one’s perfect” the saying goes, “that’s why pencils have erasers”. The equivalent saying used by the forgiving folk at the European Patent Office (EPO) would be: “no one’s perfect, that’s why the European Patent Convention allows correction of mistakes in any document filed under Rule 139”. However, the EPO’s case law on corrections generally […]
8th Sep 2016
In January this year, we wrote about the initiation of US ‘Interference’ proceedings at the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) involving US patents and applications relating to the ‘CRISPR-Cas’ system of programmable gene editing. The opposing parties are the Doudna group (led by Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier […]
6th Sep 2016
The Olympic Games officially kicked off in Rio almost a month ago amidst controversial political and health concerns surrounding the event. The privilege of associating oneself with the Olympics is only within reach of a select few. For approximately a month, many companies, primarily athlete sponsors, were forced to remain ‘in silence’ about the Olympics […]