Good news for UK businesses, the UK Government has agreed a deal to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) with a well-negotiated exemption. The CPTPP is a free trade agreement between 11 countries, which reduces trade and investment barriers between members by eliminating tariffs and establishing common rules. The Agreement includes… Read more »
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Agriculture
Important Change to “Ten Day Rule” of the EPC
Author: Leonita Paulrja On 14 October 2022, the Administrative Council of the European Patent Office (EPO) voted to remove the ‘ten day rule’ under Rule 126(2) EPC. Under current EPO practice, unless it can be shown to be later, a notification is deemed to be made ten days after the date shown on the communication (even… Read more »
EPO announce Video Conference as default format of Oral Proceedings
EPO President António Campinos has announced that from 1 January 2023 video conference (VICO) will be the default format of Oral Proceedings before the examining and opposition divisions, the Legal Division and the Receiving Section. Oral Proceedings “…may be held on the premises of the European Patent Office, either at the request of a… Read more »
UKIPO issues guidance on protecting AI innovations
In September 2022, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) published guidelines setting out the practice within the IPO for the examination of patent applications for inventions relating to Artificial Intelligence (AI). This guidance follows the government’s response to a call for views on AI and intellectual property, which committed the IPO to publish these enhanced… Read more »
When is a Cat not a Cat? When it’s a Caterpillar. Or a Tigercat. Or is it?
Author: Dan Byrne Tigercat International Inc. (“Tigercat”) and Caterpillar Inc. (“Caterpillar”) have been in conflict in numerous countries around the world due to conflict arising between Tigercat’s name and Caterpillar Inc’s commonly used abbreviation “Cat”. Most recently, a dispute in the EU IPO has resulted in Tigercat losing an opposition for its application for… Read more »
Re-designing the system – the UK IPO consults on the future of UK design protection – all questions answered by the government*! *not
I reported on the post-Brexit consultation launched by the UK government into the design system here, and the government’s response was recently published here. This article looks at the main conclusions offered in the government response. If you were envisaging that the response would set out a clear plan for the reform of the system… Read more »
CRISPR: the gene editing tool and related patents
CRISPR: the gene editing tool and related patents CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) gene-editing technology is considered as one of the biggest innovations of the century in the biotechnology field and has gained a lot of attention worldwide, especially in the US and Europe in the area of Intellectual Property Rights. Research has… Read more »