News

Patenting Medical Devices at the European Patent Office

It has been well understood for many years that European patent law excludes patent protection for methods of treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy.

Oral Proceedings by Video at the EU Patent Offce

Almost all opposition and appeal cases that progress to a final decision at the EPO will involve oral proceedings where the parties are provided with the opportunity to argue their case, such as based on the latest set of claim amendments, or prior art cited, or European patent jurisprudence.

UK IPO IP Access grants

UK IPO IP Access grants - an extension to the IP Audit Plus Scheme

Double patenting at the European Patent Office

Double patenting relates to a situation where two patents are granted to the same proprietor in the same country for a single invention. There is no explicit prohibition of double patenting in the European Patent Convention (EPC). However, the EPO have taken account of principals of procedural law generally recognised in the contracting states.

T 0116/18 - a new plausibility threshold for post-filing data?

At the European Patent Office (EPO), the Board of Appeal in T 0116/18 appears set to refer to the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) the question of whether, for the acknowledgement of inventive step, a technical effect must be made plausible from the disclosure of an application as filed (so called “ab initio plausibility”). In particular, the referral aims to clarify whether post-published data can be used in the situation where the proof of the effect is exclusively provided by such post-published data.

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Funding for SMEs under the UK IPO's IP Audits Plus Scheme

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UK Supreme Court and NHS damages

On 2 July 2021, the UK Supreme Court dismissed an appeal brought by the Secretary of State for Health and the NHS Business Services Authority (“The NHS”) against a Court of Appeal decision to dismiss their claims against Servier Laboratory Ltd (Servier) under the tort of causing loss by unlawful means – a highly unusual and uncommon tort claim in patent litigation.

New EPO Legal Board of Appeal Decision J0001/20

J 0001/20 is the latest decision handed down from the European Patent Office’s (EPO) Legal Board of Appeal (‘the Board’), which hears appeals primarily concerning procedural matters in respect of European patent applications and, more generally, whether EPO practices comply with the actual legal text of the European Patent Convention (EPC).