Publications, press articles, rankings, awards
2
03, 2023
The fees and expenses as revised by the EPO are binding on payments made on or after 1 April 2023.
This adjustment comes only one year after the last fee adjustment of 1 April 2022. In the past, the EPO used to adapt the official fees every two years.
31
01, 2023
What does « opt-out » mean?
Opt-out is a request to withdraw a European patent or a published application from the jurisdiction of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). (more…)
25
01, 2023
The European Patent Convention (EPC) was signed in Munich on October 5, 1973 and entered into force on October 7, 1977 for the following member states: Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
8
12, 2022
With the entry into force of the unitary patent, the unified patent court (UPC) and the associated transitional provisions, it will be possible to escape the competence of the UPC for European published applications and patents without unitary effect (OPT OUT), by the filing of a declaration made by the effective Applicant/Patentee, before the start of proceedings.6
12, 2022
The Sunrise Period of the Unified Patent Jurisdiction was supposed to start on 1 January 2023, with a goal of the jurisdiction becoming operational on 1 April 2023.
In a press release dated 5 December 2022, the Court states that this timetable is postponed by two months. The Sunrise Period will therefore start on 1 March 2023, with the aim of the Court coming into force on 1 June 2023.
2
12, 2022
The deposit of the Unified Patent Court Agreement ratification instrument by Germany will trigger the Sunrise period and the entry into force of the UPCA (3 months after the start of the Sunrise period).
In anticipation of the opening of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) that is currently planned for April 1st 2023, it will be possible to opt out existing patents and patent application from the jurisdiction of the UPC.
25
11, 2022
The European Patent with unitary effect (“Unified Patent”) will be introduced soon. The final missing ratification is expected to be deposited by Germany in December. (more…)
11
11, 2022
1. Under the current EPC system, letters from the EPO are deemed to be delivered to the addressee on the tenth day following its handover to the postal service provider. (more…)
9
11, 2022
Operation of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is currently expected for 1st April 2023 (https://www.unified-patent-court.org/news/latest-state-play-view-launch-unified-patent-court), thus launching the sunrise period as soon as 1st January 2023.
During this sunrise period, it will be possible to opt-out European (EP) titles from the competence of the UPC. Opt-out will be possible for published EP patent applications, granted EP patents (without unitary effect) and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) issued for a product protected by a EP patent (A.83 UPCA).
19
10, 2022
The INPI recognizes an infringement of the Protected Geographical Indication COGNAC by a trademark claiming eaux de vie benefiting from the geographical indication “Cognac”.
The COGNAC appellation is protected as a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) at the European level.
The use of the COGNAC appellation is therefore regulated so that only spirits produced within a delimited production area and respecting the particular conditions of production as to the method of production, ageing and alcoholic strength defined by the specifications attached to this PGI, can benefit from it.
On November 3, 2021, the company COGNAPEA filed an application for the French trademark Cognapea which, following an objection from the INPI, claimed “Eaux de vie benefiting from the geographical indication “Cognac” in class 33.
Following the publication of this trademark application, the Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité (INAO) and the Bureau National Professionnel du Cognac (BNIC) jointly filed an opposition to the registration of this trademark application on the basis of the infringement of the geographical indication COGNAC.
INPI recalled that the geographical indication COGNAC is protected at the European Union level and that any infringement must be examined exclusively in the light of Regulation (EU) 2019/787 of April 17, 2019, which provides in particular in Article 21 that geographical indications are protected against “any usurpation, imitation or evocation, even if the true origin of the goods or services is indicated (…)“.
INPI further clarified that, according to the aforementioned article of the Community Regulation, geographical indications may be used by any operator marketing a spirit drink that complies with the corresponding specifications, but that according to the same article, the “evocation” of these geographical indications for such products is not allowed.
The INPI recognized that this trademark application constituted an infringement by “evocation” of the COGNAC indication insofar as it consisted of the sequence COGNA- and claimed products identical to those benefiting from the geographical indication.
It also admitted that such an evocation, by only partially reproducing the geographical indication COGNAC, could lead to a weakening of its reputation by trivializing it.
Consequently, and even though the contested trademark application claimed exclusively “Eaux de vie benefiting from the geographical indication “Cognac”, the INPI pronounced the total rejection of the Cognapea trademark application (INPI Opposition Decision n°OP22-0433 of 26/08/2022).