Source: https://www.jakemp.com/en/briefings/EU-Wide-Patent-Court-Will-Miss-December-Start-Targets
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 06:27:54+00:00

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The planned European Union-wide patent court and related patent right will not launch in December as planned.
The Unified Patent Court preparatory committee said June 7 that the delay was caused by several countries failing to agree to the protocol on UPC Provisional Application. The protocol allows parts of the UPC agreement, the controlling document for the court, to come into effect earlier.
The committee’s goal was to start the Provisional Application phase in May, to allow preparations for a December launch.
The planned patent court will have effect throughout most of the EU and will be accompanied by a single patent right that will also provide protection across multiple countries. Currently, patents and courts in the EU only cover individual countries. The new system would likely be attractive to large multinational companies, as it would make it easier and less costly to maintain patent protection throughout the EU.
UPC Preparatory Committee Head of Secretariat Eileen Tottle declined to comment, but said there would be another announcement at the end of June. The European Patent Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lawyers told Bloomberg BNA that the delay is not surprising, given the challenge of completing all the preparations on time.
‘‘I think the delay just reflects the practical realities’’ that the committee had too much to do, and there’s likely nothing suspicious about it, Edward Nodder, senior partner of patent litigation at Bristows LLP in London, told Bloomberg BNA. There was a growing sense that the necessary work would not be completed on time, he said.
The provisional protocol phase would come into effect after 13 countries have both agreed to the protocol and ratified, or declared they have parliamentary approval to ratify, the main UPC agreement. Only eight countries have so far met both requirements.
Without the provisional protocol in place, the court can’t do things like make official offers to hire judges, Nodder said.
Political uncertainties may also have played a role in the delay. The UPC agreement requires the U.K. to be one of the 13 ratifying countries. The UK has said it intends to go forward with ratification, but Parliament has not voted on it. The UK has agreed to the provisional application protocol.
The UPC missing the December launch is not a surprise after Prime Minister Theresa May in April called for a snap general election, Tom Carver, patent partner with JA Kemp in London, told Bloomberg BNA. With the election taking place June 8, Carver said he wouldn’t expect the U.K.’s ratification until September at the earliest.
Sally Shorthose, patent partner with Bird & Bird, also told Bloomberg BNA that the delay is not a surprise, adding that she has been advising clients that a launch in the first quarter of 2018 is more likely.
Ilya Kazi, patent partner with Mathys Squire LLP in London, told Bloomberg BNA that the ratifying legislation is likely ready to go and just needs to be passed by Parliament. If May’s Conservative Party stays in power, the government may submit the same instrument for passage, and the delay may be fairly short, he said.
Kazi added that the Labour Party has not made many, if any, substantive statements on the UPC, so it is unclear what would happen if it wins the election.
The UK’s announcement in November that it will ratify the treaty was seen as a positive development by UPC supporters, though there is debate about whether it can remain in the system once it finalizes its EU exit.
The CJEU issued on 21 March 2019 its judgment in the Abraxis C-443/17 case. The full text of the judgment can be found here . The referral in Abraxis C-443/17 was made by Mr Justice Arnold of the English High Court in a case concerning an application for an SPC for the oncology product ABRAXANE®. This product comprises the active ingredient paclitaxel formulated in albumin-bound paclitaxel nanoparticles. Paclitaxel had been the subject of earlier marketing authorisations, albeit in different formulations.
The issue of “double patenting” arises in the EPO when one applicant files two European patent applications with closely related claims and the same effective filing date. A situation where double patenting commonly needs to be considered is when the claims of a divisional application overlap with the claims of its parent application. Under such circumstances it is necessary to determine how much overlap between the claims of the two applications should be permitted. The case law has developed such that the EPO will generally allow substantial overlap between the claims.
In 2014, the EPO launched the Early Certainty initiative to speed up the patent granting process. This initiative has resulted in speedier establishment of search reports and a shorter examination procedure. As can be seen from the chart, the result is that the number of EP patents granted since the launch of the initiative has increased far more quickly than the number of patent applications filed. This is confirmed by our experience, in which a quicker turnaround time has been noticeable, with an increasing number of applications proceeding to grant directly after a response to the search report is filed.
This briefing explores the options available to applicants in the event that the deadline for filing a PCT has been missed. In this context we refer to the deadline for filing a PCT application that is set by the twelve month deadline for claiming priority under the Paris Convention. A successful claim to priority may be important, particularly if the applicant has disclosed their invention after filing their first application and wishes to proceed with national and/or regional phases in which no grace period is provided for disclosures by the inventor/applicant.
The deadline for requesting entry of a PCT application into the European regional phase is 31 months from the filing date or, if priority has been claimed, from the priority date (Rule 159(1) EPC). However, if this deadline is missed, remedies are available that may permit entry into the European regional phase later than this deadline.
Re-establishment of rights under Article 122 EPC may be used to recover rights lost as a result of missing a deadline set by the European Patent Office. The requirements of this provision are shared with a number of restoration systems worldwide. There is much variation from regime to regime. However, the European Patent Office approach is well established, with a history of case law that makes it clear what is needed to successfully recover rights in Europe.
The central issue when seeking restoration or re-establishment of rights in many countries is establishing that due care was taken. This is certainly true of cases before the European Patent Office. This paper reviews what issues may need to be addressed in order to demonstrate due care to the European Patent Office when preparing grounds for re-establishment of rights. Other offices, such as the International Bureau, follow a similar approach to the European Patent Office.
On 28 May 2018 the European Commission published 1 a proposal for a change in the law (see discussion here and here ), which would permit third parties to manufacture a medicinal product protected by a Supplementary Protection Certificate for the exclusive purpose of export to countries outside the EU.
2018 has been a year of increased productivity for at least those Boards of Appeal that cover software inventions (Boards 3.5.01 and 3.5.03 to 3.5.06). In particular Board 3.5.01 has returned to a similar level of productivity as the other Boards now that it has a Chairman. The main controversies continue to be the proper treatment of mixed inventions (those involving non-technical aims or features as well as technical ones) and how to determine what is and is not technical.
The Supreme Court in the UK handed down its decision in Warner-Lambert v Actavis on 14th November 2018 (and a copy of the complete decision is available here ). The Supreme Court considered the following issues in its judgment: how much data is required in the application as originally filed to support a second medical use claim; and the circumstances under which “cross label use” for the patented indication of a drug sold by a competitor company can constitute infringement of a second medical use claim.
On 24 September 2018 the UK Government published a series of Technical Notices addressing various scenarios in which the UK leaves the European Union without an agreement, the so-called “no deal” or “hard” Brexit scenario. The Technical Notice dealing with Patents/SPCs, the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court is here .
On 24 September 2018 the UK Government published a series of Technical Notices addressing various scenarios in which the UK leaves the European Union without an agreement, the so-called “no deal” or “hard” Brexit scenario. The Technical Notice dealing with exhaustion of IP rights is here .
On 25 July 2018 the CJEU gave its ruling in C-121/17 Teva UK Ltd and others v Gilead Sciences Inc.
What are SPCs? A Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) is an intellectual property right available for active ingredients of human and veterinary medicinal products requiring marketing authorisation  . The highest tribunal hearing disputes involving SPCs for EU member states is the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Historically there have been numerous referrals to the CJEU on points of law relating to SPCs and this is expected to continue. Some of the key decisions are discussed below.
The EPO operates a PCT service, PCT Direct, available to PCT applications which: name the European Patent Office as International Searching Authority; and claim priority from an earlier patent application which was searched by the EPO. If a new PCT application fulfils both of these criteria, the Applicant may file a “PCT Direct letter” providing informal comments with the application. The Search Examiner is obliged to consider those comments when preparing the International Search Report and the Written Opinion on patentability.
This document is intended to provide a brief introduction to Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) for plant protection products. For more detailed information, please speak to your usual J A Kemp contact.
This document is intended to provide a brief introduction to Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) for medicinal products. For more detailed information, please see our full briefing on this topic.
Trade secrets, and the law relating to them, can seem a bit of a ‘black art’, but the basics are very simple. In summary, companies should 1) know what their trade secrets are and 2) take steps to keep them secret.
The European Commission published on 28 May 2018 a proposal 1 for a “manufacturing waiver” to permit third parties to manufacture a medicinal product protected by a Supplementary Protection Certificate for the purposes of export to countries outside the EU. The Commission aims to have the new legislation in place by 2019.
The European Patent Office (EPO) applies the same basic patentability criteria to antibodies as to other inventions, but it can sometimes appear that antibodies are treated as a special case. For an explanation of the basic approach adopted by the EPO, please see our related briefing Antibodies in the European Patent Office – Basic Principles or ask your usual J A Kemp contact. The present briefing is intended to develop those Basic Principles into a guide to the drafting and prosecution of patent applications for antibody inventions.
Although it is not unique to the field, the approach of the European Patent Office (EPO) can present significant challenges to applicants seeking to pursue claims to conventional antibody molecules. This briefing explores what we consider to be the basic principles of the EPO’s approach to this type of invention.
The EPO announced in January 2018 a number of changes to the rules and fee structure that come into force on 1 April 2018. The key changes are (a) discontinuation of the reduced search fee for most European regional phase applications, (b) expansion of the window in which the third year renewal fee can be paid, and (c) changes to fee structure, including an increased appeal fee for most corporate appellants. These changes are discussed in further detail below.
2017 was a year of change for the Boards of Appeal of the EPO: a new President 1 and a move out of the EPO’s oldest building in the centre of Munich to a suburb, Haar. There has been some recruitment, but overall it appears there are still many vacancies on various Boards. Overall the relevant Boards issued 10% more decisions than in 2016 and Board 3.5.01 in particular has significantly increased its output in the latter part of the year as it now has a chairman.
The European Patent Office (EPO) uses the term “ disclaimer ” to refer to a negative feature in a claim of a patent application. Negative features are those which exclude certain subject matter from the scope of protection. While a positive feature in a claim may for instance take the form “ wherein the composition comprises X ”, a disclaimer would take the form “ wherein the composition does not comprise X ”.
Since the UK Court of Appeal judgment in Menashe v William Hill, it has not been safe to assume that infringement of a patent claim including a processor or a processing step can be avoided by performing the processing on a server outside the UK. A third judgement on this topic has recently been issued – making the score two for infringement and one for non-infringement – so it is instructive to consider what factors affect a finding of infringement. We review the relevant points of the three cases and draw some practical conclusions.
The EPO has published its yearly update to the Guidelines for Examination, which came into force on 1 November 2017. The updated Guidelines for Examination can be found here , with a list of the amendments made compared to the current version available here .
The EPO has published its yearly update to the Guidelines for Examination, which came into force on 1 November 2017. The updated Guidelines for Examination can be found here , with a list of the amendments made compared to the current version available here . An overview of the changes is provided in our news item here .
Clarification of the Concept of the "Notional Business Person"
In May 2017, we reported on two “CardinalCommerce” decisions1 by EPO Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.01 that introduced the concept of a “notional business person” into in the examination of mixed inventions (inventions including both technical and non-technical features). A new decision by the same Board ( T0630/11/Waterleaf ) provides some clarification of this approach, warning against over limiting what the notional business person can do and perhaps limiting the utility of the CardinalCommerce to applicants seeking to patent mixed inventions.
The efficacy of PPH varies from territory to territory. In some patent offices there is a history of examination being influenced by the granting of a patent by particular patent offices; PPH may work well for such patent offices. In other patent offices, requesting PPH only results in acceleration and does not guarantee allowance.
The aim of the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is to provide a way for applicants to use positive examination results from one patent office to streamline prosecution in a second patent office. An evolving network of different PPH agreements exists between various patent offices, including most major patent offices. For both the European Patent Office (EPO) and the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) requesting PPH results in acceleration of examination and does not guarantee allowance.
Parameters are generally used in patent claims to define subject matter which cannot be expressed in terms of structural features. They are often relied upon for inventions in the chemical field, but can in fact be used in any technical area. Parameters can relate to features that can be measured directly, such as the density or melting point of a substance; measured indirectly, such as the tacticity of a polymer; or that can be calculated, such as the superficial velocity of a flow in a reactor. They can also be expressed in terms of relationships between such features.
The software industry has been a major beneficiary of the R&D tax credit regime in the UK. Although more obviously suited to the manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries, the software industry can also benefit from UK Patent Box legislation. One aim of the Patent Box legislation is to provide an additional incentive to locate in the UK high-value jobs associated with the development and exploitation of patented technologies. To achieve this the Patent Box legislation allows companies to pay a lower rate of UK corporation tax for profit attributable to qualifying patented technology.
The Notional Business Person - A New Actor on the IP Stage?
In two Decisions published on 27 April 2017, EPO Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.01 has given valuable guidance on the treatment of inventions that implement business methods and given rare positive verdicts on two related applications. In the process, the Board has introduced the "notional business person" whose hypothetical actions need to be considered alongside the venerable "person skilled in the [technical] art".
You have a new technical idea. When will you be ready to draft a patent specification? When will it be appropriate to file an initial application at the Patent Office? Are there any potential issues with filing an application early and making a follow-up application later? This Briefing sets out some of the factors to consider in addressing such questions.
The EPO introduced a revised accelerated prosecution procedure (PACE) on 1 January 2016. One key difference from the previous procedure is that it will now be possible to request PACE only once during the search procedure and only once during the examination procedure.
Does an SPC for a Biological Product Cover a Biosimilar?
To what extent will a Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) for a biological product be considered to encompass closely-related alternatives such as biosimilars? This question has been addressed by the EFTA court in Pharmaq v Intervet, and subsequently applied by the Norwegian Court of Appeal. This briefing provides an analysis of the case as well as our conclusions and recommendations for those seeking SPCs for biological products.
In two judgments handed down on 13 January 2017 Mr Justice Arnold decided to send questions on the SPC Regulation to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling. In each case the question reflects the lack of clarity provided by earlier key CJEU decisions, Medeva 1 and Neurim 2 . Article 3(a) is the product “protected by a basic patent in force”.
The protection of software inventions in Europe and the United States has often been described in terms of a pendulum swinging between a liberal position, in which almost anything can be protected, and a restrictive position, in which it is much harder to obtain patents for inventions relating to or using software. While the United States has recently taken a decisive swing to the restrictive side, the position in Europe has been relatively stable for the best part of a decade.
In the 2016 decision T 2440/12-Fluid flow simulation/SIMCON, Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.07 has found that a commercially available software package makes the methods it embodies available to the public because it could be run line-byline in a virtual machine (VM).
The Patent Box makes the existence of a patent more attractive, whatever the breadth of the patent’s claim, so long as it covers the product (or process or service). A company may wish to adapt its strategies both for filing and prosecuting patent applications and for patent and patent application abandonments.
Patent Box - Are you a Qualifying Company?
In order to benefit from the Patent Box, the beneficiary must be a qualifying company as defined in the legislation. We discuss here the requirements of a qualifying company.
Patent Box - Do you Hold Qualifying IP Rights?
In order to benefit from the Patent Box, a company must hold or have an exclusive license to a qualifying IP right. Here we discuss the definition of a qualifying IP right.
Patent Box - What is Relevant IP Income?
When Should you Elect In to the Patent Box?
A company must elect in to the Patent Box regime in order to take advantage of the reduction in payable UK Corporation Tax. For some companies there may be advantages in delaying entry into the Patent Box. This Briefing looks at this issue.
We outline here the accounting steps which are necessary to calculate the Patent Box benefit. We also present a simplified example calculation which may help you to estimate the amount of saving in UK Corporation Tax you might expect to make if you were to elect in to the Patent Box regime under either the pre- or post- 1 July 2016 Patent Box rules.
In 2015 the Boards of Appeal of the EPO continued to develop the “Comvik” approach to examining mixed inventions, that is inventions involving both technical and non-technical features, but again declined to define what is and is not technical. This article discusses some statistics from 2015 of the various Boards of Appeal that consider software inventions and some interesting or notable decisions.
Why Does My Start-Up Need Patents?
A patent is a legal monopoly granted by a government in return for public disclosure of an invention. A granted patent gives the proprietor the right to prevent others using the invention in the territory to which the patent applies.
Third party patents can represent significant obstacles to achieving a commercial goal. The opposition procedure at the European Patent Office (EPO), if used successfully, can provide a cost-efficient mechanism for removing or limiting a troublesome patent. As a general rule, it is relatively cheap compared to national litigation and the centralised procedure means that revocation or limitation of a European patent in the opposition procedure applies in all of the validation states. However, EPO oppositions are often slow, in particular when the appeal stage is taken into account.
The UK Patents Act was amended on 1 October 2014 to clarify the extent to which conducting clinical trials to assess the safety and efficacy of a patented drug can constitute patent infringement. This briefing contains a discussion of the amendments and of the situation before the future European Unitary Patent Court (UPC).
In G 3/14 the EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal has ruled on the extent to which amendments made in EPO Opposition (and Opposition Appeal) proceedings may be examined for clarity, conciseness and support (Article 84 EPC). They confirmed that compliance with Article 84 EPC may be examined only when, and to the extent that, the amendment introduces non-compliance with Article 84 EPC. In particular an amendment which introduces the feature of a dependent claim may not be examined for Article 84 where the feature introduced corresponds to the complete dependent claim or is a simple alternative in such a claim.
Section 7(2) of the Indian Patents Act requires that when an application is made “by virtue of an assignment of the right to apply for a patent for the invention” , then it is necessary to file “proof of the right to make the application” . The so-called “proof of right” is normally a “Form 1” signed by the applicant and the inventors. Alternatively, a certified/notarised copy of an assignment of rights in the invention in India from the inventors to the applicant can be filed in place of a “Form 1”.
Many countries have provisions which allow for compulsory licences to be granted under exceptional circumstances. However, in recent years, these provisions have only rarely, if ever, been used.
Two recent decisions of an EPO Technical Board of Appeal recognise that recognition of human gestures, e.g. as a method of computer input, is technical. The Board overturned refusal of two European patent applications relating to the recognition of specific sequences of human gestures using a computer touch pad. In these refusals, the Examining Division had asserted that human gestures are inherently non-technical as a matter of policy and cannot therefore contribute to inventive step.
In its decision in Generics (Mylan) V Yeda & Teva, the UK Court of Appeal considered the extent to which subsequent evidence can be relied upon for the determination of inventive step. The Court closely followed the approach adopted by the EPO to the consideration of such evidence. The decision provides a useful summary of the manner in which the technical contribution provided by a patent is assessed.
Article 53(c) EPC specifies various patentability exclusions, including “diagnostic methods practised on the human or animal body”. This exclusion was considered in opinion G1/04 of the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The Enlarged Board identified two requirements that must both be met for a claim to be excluded from patentability. Firstly, the claimed method must include all the steps necessary to reach a medical decision on diagnosis. Secondly, all the technical steps of the method must require the presence of the human or animal body. This two-part test has subsequently been developed in several Technical Boards of Appeal decisions.
Article 53(c) EPC specifies a number of exceptions to patentability in the field of medicine, including “ methods for the treatment of the human or animal body by surgery ”. These exceptions to patentability were included in the EPC on socio-ethical and public health grounds to ensure that medical and veterinary practitioners remain free to take any action necessary to treat or diagnose illnesses.
What is a patent? A patent is a legal monopoly granted by a government in return for public disclosure of an invention. A granted patent gives the proprietor the right to prevent others using the invention in the territory to which the patent applies. A patent does not, however, give a positive right to use an invention. There may be earlier patents for other inventions that an inventor may need to license to exploit his own invention.
After your patent application has been filed at one (or more) of the many Patent Offices around the world, it will be processed by that Patent Office. This is known as the patent “prosecution” process. This Briefing provides an overview of what to expect. However there are many local differences to take into account. The law and practice that govern the details of the procedures followed by the Patent Office vary widely from country to country. The cost involved and the time taken to process applications also vary from country to country, and indeed from case to case.
Which new ideas are worthy of a patent application? How should the applications be drafted and prosecuted? When should they be filed? Where in the world should they be filed? How long should applications and granted patents be maintained? A systematic answer to these questions is provided by a patent strategy. A patent strategy is part of an overall intellectual property (IP) strategy. It is usually the most important part of such a strategy for technology-based companies. The IP strategy should follow the company’s R&D strategy which in turn should follow its overall business strategy.
On 24 September 2018 the UK Government published a series of Technical Notices addressing various scenarios in which the UK leaves the European Union without an agreement, the so-called “no deal” or “hard” Brexit scenario. The Technical Notice dealing with copyright is here .
The CJEU has dismissed Nestlé’s appeal on the acquired distinctiveness of the KitKat bar. The Court has re-affirmed the principle that, for an EU trade mark to be registered on the basis of acquired distinctiveness through use, the acquisition of distinctive character needs to be shown in every Member State of the EU in which it did not, ab initio, have such character. It remains to be seen whether the CJEU decision signals the end for Nestlé’s trade mark registration, or is merely one decision in a series of appeals set to continue for some years to come.
Is it Worth Filing in China?
We are pleased to report the successful enforcement of our client Action Storage Systems Limited’s UK unregistered Design Rights in their highly successful eXtreme plastic locker. The IPEC judgement, handed down by Judge Hacon on 7 December, demonstrates the power of the unregistered Design Right in restraining copying and the power of disclosure in revealing evidence of copying. Various defences were raised and although none displaced the fact of infringement of the overall design, they did give rise to some interesting points of law.
In July, the U.K. repealed a provision that provided a shortened term of copyright protection for ‘‘artistic works.’’ Because this change also revives protection that had expired under the old law but would be revived under the new, rights holders in certain industries such as furniture makers may now have resurrected rights that can be asserted against those copying their works.
In the UK, a successful claimant in a patent infringement action is entitled to claim ‘damages’, that is monetary compensation for damage actually caused by the infringement (but not punitive damages), or an account of the infringer’s profits derived from the infringement. Damages are more commonly claimed than an account of profits so Design and Display v OOO Abbott provides useful, and rare, guidance from the Court of Appeal on how an account of profits should be assessed.
The High Court of England and Wales was asked for permission to serve proceedings for UK patent infringement on a Chinese manufacturing company. In considering whether or not to grant permission, the court had to consider the burden of proof when establishing infringement of a process claim. It also considered whether or not the Chinese company could properly be said to be a joint tortfeasor.
The Court of Appeal has delivered its decision on Roger Maier and Assos of Switzerland SA v. ASOS plc and ASOS.com Limited, the latest in a long-running series of trade mark disputes between Assos, the manufacturer of high-quality cycling clothing and sportswear, and Asos, the online fashion retailer. The case considers the extent to which an infringer is able to rely on the “own name” defence to trade mark infringement under Article 12 of the Community Trade Mark Regulation (CTMR).
When Can Shape Trade Marks Be Registered?
On 11 June 2015, the Opinion of Advocate General Wathelet was delivered in Case C-215/14, Nestle v Cadbury, a case concerning the registrability of the shape of the well-known Kit-Kat chocolate bar.
Do Not Immediately Contact the Infringer! You may discover or suspect that someone is infringing one or more of your IP (intellectual property) rights. It could be a patent at the core of your business, a trade mark protecting your main brand or an important product design. When you become aware of the situation, you may be tempted to go straight into battle and take immediate action. Your first instinct may be to contact the infringer straight away and tell them to stop infringing.
In a previous briefing (Design For “Trunki” Child’s Wheeled Suitcase Successfully Enforced), we reported the successful enforcement of Magmatic’s Community design for the “Trunki” against PMS International’s “Kidee Case”. PMS were, however, successful in their appeal, leading to the decision at first instance being overturned in the Court of Appeal. The appeal addresses some important questions regarding the interpretation of the registered design and on what level a comparison should be made with an alleged infringement.

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