Services
Our services are centred around intellectual property that can be registered. We protect innovation, design, and branding across all sectors of industry, and at all stages in the supply chain.
For each IP right we offer services covering strategic advice, pre-registration searches, registrations and renewals, oppositions and dispute resolution. We handle work throughout the world, working with local colleagues in over 100 countries.
Services
Sectors
Our attorneys specialise in one or more sectors of industry, which enables them to provide quality advice with a commercial focus.
Our patent specialists have detailed understanding of the background technology, which ensures that your patent applications are prepared with the correct scope, reducing the likelihood of challenges from third parties and objections from the patent office.
They also advise whether other forms of protection would be more appropriate. Our brand specialists work with brand managers for leading brands and their advice is commercially focussed making sure that you get the best value from your budget.
Sectors
Oral proceedings in case G1/21 took place today (2 July 2021) for the second time in case, after proceedings were adjourned at the first oral proceedings that took place last month. While we don’t know what the outcome of the oral proceedings will be, the proceedings were at least properly concluded and we can expect the written decision in due course.
Since 2006, the European Patent Office has recognised “the creativity of inventors the world over, who use their technical, scientific and intellectual skills to contribute to technological progress, thereby driving and economic growth and improving people’s daily lives” at the annual European Inventor Awards. Sadly the 2020 European Inventor Awards were cancelled, just like Eurovision. As a result, the 15 inventors and inventor teams on the 2020 shortlist (along with us, loyal fans) have waited a whole year to find out who will emerge victorious.
Patents are, of necessity, filed at an early stage in the development of new technology, which means that patent filing trends can provide good insights today’s R&D and tomorrow’s leading technologies.Climate change targets are a major driver of innovation in today’s world. There is little doubt that innovative solutions are needed across the board if we are to achieve net-zero by 2050, and limit the rise in average global temperate to below 2C, as set out in the Paris Agreement.
Last year, we reviewed a United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (IPO) report on sectors of the economy which make the most intensive use of intellectual property (IP) rights, and how much these sectors contribute to the UK economy. This week, the European Patent Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office have jointly published a report on the commercial benefit of owning IP rights to European companies
Truly global patent specifications are the holy grail for applicants that file around the world. It’s easy to see why. If a specification meets the requirements of all the national patent offices in which protection is going to be sought the application will easier to prosecute and litigate locally and therefore cheaper overall.
Last week, the European Patent Office (EPO), together with the International Energy Agency (IEA), released a detailed report on patenting activity in electricity storage between 2000 and 2018. An EPO press release is available on the EPO website along with the full report.
The UK Intellectual Property Office published, on 7 September 2020, a call for views on the future of Artificial Intelligence and the UK IP framework.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly an important tool in industry. Not just in computer science but in almost all fields of industry. And where an AI innovation provides a benefit to users, many would like to protect it with a patent. The European Patent Office (EPO) recognises this. In 2017 the EPO published a study on the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ that identified AI as a key enabling technology. As we reported previously, the EPO has held a conference discussing the patentability of AI. And the EPO has recently announced that their Berlin branch is to become a centre of expertise in AI. So it is worth looking at how AI inventions can be patented in Europe.