9th Jan 2023
Reddie & Grose, a UK and European firm of Patent, Trade Mark and Design attorneys, is delighted to announce that Dr Yumiko Kato has joined the firm as a Senior Associate. She will be working out of the London office.
23rd Nov 2022
In view of the recently published roadmap, the EPO has decided to adjust the start date of its transitional measures to 1 January 2023.
2nd Nov 2022
The deadline of 9-months from grant for opposing a European patent is one of the few absolute deadlines set by the European Patent Office but it does not represent the last chance to get involved in EP opposition proceedings. Even if you have missed this 9-month term there is still, under very specific circumstances, the opportunity to “intervene” in pending opposition (or opposition-appeal) proceedings.
18th Oct 2022
The question of whether an applicant is required to amend the description of their patent application such that it conforms to the claims (i.e., to remove or explicitly disclaim embodiments or examples that do not, or no longer, fall within the scope of the claims) has recently been considered in a number of EPO decisions.
13th Oct 2022
A petition for review is a way to challenge the final decision of the Technical Board of Appeal (“the TBA”) of the EPO. Since December 2007, when petitions for review were first made an available recourse, only 9 of 191 petitions succeeded – that is, resulted in the decision under review being set aside – putting the overall hit-rate at 4.7%. Clearly, the petitioner is rarely triumphant.
10th Oct 2022
On 6 October 2022 the Unified Patent Court (UPC) preparatory team shared an implementation road map, illustrating the expected timeline and the key activities of the UPC in the coming months.
7th Oct 2022
Under Article 123(2) of the European Patent Convention (EPC), it is not permissible to add subject matter to an application after is filed, while under Article 123(3), any amendments that broaden the protection of a patent after grant are to be refused. Subject matter may inadvertently be added to an application in any number of […]
23rd Sep 2022
A European patent application can be granted by the EPO even if there are “earlier national rights” filed before the patent application in one or more designated states, provided those earlier national rights were published after the priority date of the European patent application. Nevertheless, after grant, these national rights can be used to challenge the validity of national validations of the European patent in those states. These national rights do not affect the validity of the patents in the other states where such earlier national rights do not exist. However, since a Unitary Patent will be a single right covering multiple states, if there is an earlier national right in any one of the participating states that would invalidate the patent, this national right would invalidate the unitary patent. Therefore, the protection would be lost across all of the states covered by the unitary patent.