Intellectual Property Expert Group
Intellectual Property Expert Group
TrustTalk, a sister blog by IPEG consultant Severin de Wit, as well as the TrustTalk podcast cover all aspects of trust. As of December 1, 2020, IPEG will keep its readers and followers updated on trust aspects that IPR practitioners…
After Britain’s public vote to leave the EU, the question comes up – in as far as intellectual property is concerned – what effect the Brexit has for the Unitary Patent (also referred to as “UPC”) project that finally seemed…
A small revolution is about to happen in European Patent Practice. Professionals in IP have been brought up with the notion that after grant, a European patent is nothing more than a bundle of national patents in a number of…
On 17 January 2012, the CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and Bündnis 90/die Grünen parliamentary parties submitted a joint motion to the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag). This provides for a prohibition on patents for conventionally bred agricultural livestock and plants. The significance…
The case was decided on August 30, 2011 (The Scripps Research Institute) by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office. The invention underlying the referring decision T 1068/07 (OJ EPO 2011, 256) concerns certain DNA molecules. Each…
In Brüstle v Greenpeace dated October 18, 2011 the EU Court of Justice decided on a referral by the German Federal Supreme Court in a nullity appeal proceedings with respect to a patent of the stem cell researcher Professor Brüstle.…
The EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal rendered its decision on the patentability of breeding methods (see our blog: Patenting Tomatoes and Broccoli) in the cases G 02/07 and G 01/08 making the patentability of breeding methods harder if not impossible.…
We blogged earlier on the 12 may 2010 G3/08 opinion of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) on the referral of 22 October 2008 by the President of the EPO on the patentability of Computer…
Today the European Patent Office’s Enlarged Board of Appeal will hear a highly contested and much anticipated case on on the patentability of biotechnological enhanced breeding methods (in this case for broccoli and tomatoes). The patentability of biotechnological inventions is…
During the Intellectual Property Business Congress (IPBC) in Munich one of the more interesting presentations was from Margot Fröhlinger, Director knowledge based economy of the EU Commission (DG Internal Market and Services) who handles the unpopular file on the creation…
On 12 may 2010, the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) issued its opinion G3/08 on the referral of 22 October 2008 by the President of the EPO on the patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions (CIIs).…
Negotiations about a new EU-South Korean Free Trade Agreement have taken a while, but finally parties reached an agreement. Although ambitious, nothing shocking it seems, but as soon words like “intellectual property” and “computer programs” are used in the same…
The European Patent Office is unable to find a successor for Allison Brimelow, the current EPO President. One of the leading candidates is said to be Benoît Battistelli, currently Director General of the French National Institute of Industrial Property. Battistelli is…
We overlooked an interesting Note from Prof. Hal Wegner on UK Court of Appeal decision rendered in May 2008. In Actavis UK Ltd. v. Merck & Co. Inc., [2008] EWCA Civ 444 (Court of Appeal 2008) (Ward, Jacob, Rimer, JJ.),…
One would assume that easier access to information worldwide that internet provides would make it easier for Patent Offices to find prior art against a patent application so as to ensure that only real inventions are passing the patent process…
Senseo is a well known and hugely popular European coffee brewing system developed in 2001 by two Dutch companies, Philips and Douwe Egberts (subsidiary of Sara Lee). This co-branding project resulted in two main innovations, the coffee pads (or “pods”)…
The US Supreme Court will hear arguments later this fall in the KSR vs. Teleflex case (about § 103 of US Patent Law, the standard for “nonobviousness”). Certiorari was granted in June of this year. The potential exists to raise…
Recently it was announced that EU Commissioner McGreevy would like to make “one more, last (emphasis on “last”!) attempt to create a low-cost EU Community Patent”. See Financial Times, January 16 It also seems that the Commission has become less…