Posts Tagged: "European Patent Office"

The most significant development in IP in Europe in 2023—indeed arguably the most significant in nearly 30 years—was the launch of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court on June 1. The full implications of this are explored here. Beyond the UP and UPC, however, there were a number of. important developments in Europe affecting all the main IP rights.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) on October 10 issued its (consolidated) decision G1/22 & G2/22, which promises to significantly reduce priority issues for applicants—U.S.applicants in particular. When the applicants for a European patent application differ from the applicants on the priority application, the EPO employs the well-established “joint applicants approach” to evaluate the priority claim’s validity. For the priority claim to be valid, and assuming there’s been no transfer of the priority right, all applicants of the priority application must also be among the applicants of the subsequent European patent application. The table below outlines various scenarios and indicates whether the priority claim is valid according to the joint applicants approach.

The European Patent Office (EPO) today launched a dashboard on Unitary Patents, which will be updated daily and breaks down data on requests for Unitary Patents by technology field, country of origin, language of translation, proprietors’ profile and status of registration. According to an EPO press release, there have been 670 requests filed on average per week since the Unitary Patent went into effect on June 1, “demonstrating high interest in the new system.” 

On Tuesday, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced the 12 inventors and inventor teams that have been selected as finalists for the 2023 European Inventor Award. The EPO placed three finalists each into four groups: Industry, Research, SMEs, and Non-EPO Countries. Members of the public can vote for the winner on the EPO’s website. The finalists hail from 12 countries, Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, and the United States. An independent jury of former European Inventor Award finalists used their expertise to select this year’s finalists.

By now, unless you live in a total IP blackout zone, you’ve heard about the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC). Your friends in Europe, particularly, have been insistent on informing you, whether you want to know or not, with daily (if not hourly) email blasts, since January of this year. But most of what they tell you misses the forest for the trees. Here’s why. Let’s begin at the beginning. Aside from your client telling you to, why do you file a patent application? The only answer is: it is a hedge as to the future. The reason for that is that you and they have no way of knowing at the time of filing whether this will be the “next big thing” or just another “thing”. You might say or even believe that filing an application is about “protection” or potential “revenue”. But it isn’t.

U.S. companies and inventors still filed more patent applications with the European Patent Office (EPO) than any other country, according to its Patent Index 2022, which was released today. The index showed that U.S. patent applications numbered 48,088, a 2.9% increase from 2021. However, China’s filings jumped by 15.1% over 2021, keeping it in fourth place out of the top five countries of origin for applications and narrowing the gap between it and Japan, the number three filer.

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) plans to open for business on April 1, 2023. Its likely place among the world’s preeminent patent courts can be inferred, at least in part, from the territorial and subject matter jurisdiction of this novel court. In Europe, several courts enjoy established reputations for patent litigation, notably in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Holland and Italy. These courts, as well as the European Patent Office (EPO), which also enjoys a strong reputation for its case law, are the preferred venues of plaintiffs for enforcing or seeking to invalidate European patents. Due to the size and economic weight of the region, the importance of European patents, and the bench of experienced patent judges and practitioners, Europe will without doubt continue to attract a substantial share of patent litigation worldwide.

There were 188,600 European patent applications filed last year, an annual increase of 4.5%, according to figures published by the European Patent Office (EPO) on April 5. Despite the impact of the pandemic, applications increased to a record level following a slight decline in 2020. The United States was once again the top country for applicants, accounting for a total of 46,533 applications in 2021 (an increase of 5.2%) or 25% of all filings. It was followed by Germany and Japan, with China ranking fourth. Applications from China increased by 24% to 16,665 in 2021; they have quadrupled in the past decade. Other notable increases were from Sweden (up 12% to 4,954), Canada (up 18.4% to 2,083) and India (up 16.5% to 817).

The European Patent Office (EPO) recently published its Guidelines for Examination 2022, which come into force on March 1. Compared to previous years, the volume of changes is much smaller, and this witnesses the effort by the EPO in past years to arrive at a more stable text of the Guidelines, particularly concerning the software patentability and biotech sections. Yet some changes have been made, mainly to software patentability guidelines, as well as to other important sections, such as partial priorities and amendments to the description. Continuing the trend of past years, the Guidelines continue to be enriched with helpful examples.

Earlier this year, the European Patent Office (EPO) updated some of its Guidelines for Examination in a way that potentially could affect U.S. patent litigation. These Guidelines instruct European patent examiners (and the public) on how the patent prosecution process works—much like the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. For example, the Guidelines detail what form a patent application must be in, what happens during a prior art search, and perhaps most importantly, what should be included in an application. Guideline F-IV 4.3 particularly focuses on the form, contents, and clarity of the claims.

In Part I of this series we discussed how patent portfolio managers should be careful when generating company-owned prior art or reviewing competitor prior art, and how a patent litigation or licensing campaign can be significantly hamstrung based on how the United States and Europe consider intervening prior art. In Part II, we examined software patents with U.S. and European Patent (EP) family members. Part III builds on Parts I and II and focuses on the value of examiner interviews in the U.S. and Europe.

This July has been a landmark month for the commercial space sector thanks in large part to the determination of two tech billionaires: Richard Branson, business magnate and founder of the Virgin Group; and Jeff Bezos, the former CEO of e-commerce titan Amazon.com. Both of these icons of business entrepreneurship reached the outer limits of Earth’s gravity to slip into space for a brief moment in recent weeks—Branson in the VSS Unity, owned by his Virgin Galactic spaceflight company, and Bezos in the New Shepard craft developed by his Blue Origin firm. The successful spaceflights for both Branson and Bezos are breathing life into the nascent space tourism industry, as many others with the wealth to pay for a seat to outer space are lining up for the opportunity.

Oral proceedings before the EPO Boards of Appeal can be held by videoconference, even without the consent of the parties, during a general emergency, according to a July 16 decision by the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal (G1/21). The question about videoconferencing was referred to the EBA in March by a Technical Board of Appeal in Case T-1807/15. The EPO introduced hearings by videoconference (generally held via Zoom) last year as a result of the pandemic and travel restrictions. Since January 2021, some oral proceedings have been conducted without the consent of the parties. The EBA, which comprises members of the Boards of Appeal and judges from EPC member states, was asked to rule on whether this was compatible with the right to oral proceedings as enshrined in Article 116(1) of the European Patent Convention. The EPO claims that videoconference hearings are necessary to manage the workload and ensure efficient delivery of justice during the pandemic. They also mean that parties throughout the EPC’s 38 member states can participate on equal terms, without having to travel to Munich or The Hague.

A decade of consecutive, annual growth in patent application activity worldwide came to a sudden halt in 2020. The pandemic has upended many aspects of business, including patent activity. Filings at the European Patent Office (EPO) may have dipped just 0.7% last year but findings from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) revealed a 3% drop in filings globally. While broad insights can be extracted from analyzing patent filing activity, as revealed by the EPO’s latest Patent Index, increasingly, organizations are looking for more. With the complexities of today’s business environment exacerbated by the pandemic, businesses seek deeper intelligence and the ability to connect different data points that can translate into actionable insights that support faster, better decisions.