The United Kingdom wants to stay in the Unitary Patent system post-Brexit. This has been confirmed in the UK’s Brexit White Paper, which was published today. According to article 151 of the paper, ‘The UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement and intends to explore staying in the Court and unitary patent system after…
The Hungarian Constitutional Court has ruled that the Unified Patent Court Agreement can’t be ratified, as no appropriate mechanism for the ratification is available. According to a report by Bristows, the Hungarian Minister of Justice, acting on behalf of the government, filed a motion (No. X / 01514/2017) on 18 July 2017, requesting the Court’s opinion…
Three weeks before the end of the presidency of Benoit Battistelli, the European Patent Office published the report ‘Modernising the EPO for excellence and sustainability’, a ‘summary of achievements resulting from the extensive modernisation reforms put in place’ during Battistelli’s term in office from 2010 to 2018. Concerns about quality, the independence of the Boards…
Four leading patent law firms in Germany – Grünecker, Hoffmann Eitle, Maiwald and Vossius & Partner – have published an open letter expressing ‘great concern’ about the developments at the European Patent Office, particularly ‘the modifications to the incentive systems for the examination of patent applications’. The ‘overreaching desire for high productivity’ has led to…
Establishing a unitary SPC is one of the recommendations of the study carried out by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition for the European Commission. Either an (existing or a future) EU authority or the European Patent Office can be charged with granting these unitary SPCs. According to the study, the choice between…
As most readers will know, yesterday the European Commission published a proposal to amend Regulation 469/2009 concerning the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products (the “SPC Regulation”) aimed at introducing a so-called “manufacturing exemption for export purposes” (in short, a “manufacturing waiver”). The rationale behind it is that the introduction of this new exemption to…
The European Commission has proposed to introduce an ‘export manufacturing waiver’ to Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) to ‘help Europe’s pharmaceutical companies tap into fast-growing global markets and foster jobs, growth and investments in the EU’. According to a press release of 28 May 2018, ‘Supplementary Protection Certificates extend patent protection for medicinal products which must…
The new Spanish Patent Act, which came into force on 1 April 2017, introduced numerous improvements aimed at modernising an old and archaic patent system that needed a total reform. One of the aspects introduced by the new Act is the possibility of limiting the patent before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, after it…
The Unitary Patent (UP) package becoming a reality would be a great step forward for Europe. Intellectual property, and patents in particular, is a key ingredient in innovation systems. However, more political efforts will be needed to build a truly European system which supports innovation dynamics. And the European Patent Office (EPO) should probably be…
At last the doubters have been proven wrong. The UK has ratified the UPC Agreement. The news was announced this afternoon by IP Minister, Sam Gyimah MP, at an IP Awareness Network event at the House of Commons Terrace to celebrate World IP Day, and we can expect to see this ratification recorded tomorrow…
