Order of the Court of Appeal of the UPC issued on June 20, 2025 – APL_20694/2025 +

In appeal decision APL_8790/2025, dated June 2, 2025, the Court of Appeal of the UPC confirmed the temporal competence of the UPC for acts which occurred before the entry into force of the UPC Agreement and during the opt-out period when the opt-out was withdrawn prior to filing the action before the UPC. +

1. The EPO’s management system was audited in April 2025 in view of renewing the certifications already obtained in the past and obtaining ISO14001 certification for the first time. +

Decision of the Court of Appeal of the Unified Patent Court issued on 5 May 2025, UPC_CoA_635/2024, APL_58934/2024 Order of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court Central division (Paris seat) issued on 2 April 2025 concerning the generic procedural applications Nos. App_61657/2024, 61782/2024 and 61784/2024 UPC_CFI_164/2024 +

In April, the European Patent Office (EPO) has published a new version of the Guidelines for Examination, Unitary Patent Guidelines, and PCT-EPO Guidelines. +

(Rule 313 RoP), UPC_CFI_698/2024 (CD Milan, March 27, 2025) +

Notice from the European Patent Office dated 12 February 2025 concerning the adoption of gender-neutral language in the EPC Implementing Regulations. +

Following our last IP Alert of 23 January 2025, the decision of the European Commission dated 8 April 2025 (only the English text is authentic) is now available under reference AT.40588 : https://competition-cases.ec.europa.eu/cases/AT.40588 +

For European patents, methods for treatment by surgery or therapy are explicitly excluded from patentability by the legislation (Article 53 EPC), although the case law of the European Patent Office has evolved towards a more permissive practice than in the past. Medical devices are not excluded, however, and may be the subject of a European patent application. +

Court of Appeal Decision of the UPC of 11-12 2024 AIM SPORT DEVELOPMENT AG vs SUPPONOR +

The Technical Board of Appeal of the EPO has referred a question to the Enlarged Board of Appeal to further clarify the status of a third party intervening during appeal proceedings. +

The case law of the European Patent Office (EPO) concerning the patentability of surgical methods has undergone a significant evolution following decision G1/07 of the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal in February 2010. +

Starting from December 1, 2024, the search fees for designating the EPO as International Search Authority for applications participating in the CNIPA-EPO Pilot Programme may be paid in Chinese Yuan directly at the CNIPA. +

Copaxone – EU Commission fines Teva €462.6 million over misuse of the patent system and disparagement. +

Regulation No. 1278 published on 27 September 2024 makes a number of changes to Russian law. +

Notice from the European Patent Office dated 2 July 2024 concerning a change of practice in access to patent literature documents cited in search and examination proceedings. +

Notice from the European Patent Office dated 1 July 2024 concerning the continuation of examination and opposition proceedings in view of referral G 1/24. +

On March 15, 2024, the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry published amendments in the Official Gazette, modifying certain patent rules from 2003. +

Cumulative Protection: European Patent and National Patent vs Unitary Patent and National Patent +

The EPO recently published its new strategic plan for the coming years up to 2028. +

The dashboard presents key performance indicators (KPIs) in quality and aims to enhance transparency by providing quarterly updates on quality and user satisfaction +

The EPO will accelerate the processing of oppositions if it is informed of parallel infringement or revocation proceedings before the Unified Patent Court or a national court or competent authority of a contracting state. +

The EPO has published a simplified fee system newly introducing reduced fees for micro-entities. +

Recently, the annual IP5 Statistics Report of the world’s five largest IP offices (IP5) was issued. +

The Enlarged Board of Appeal issued a decision on the consolidated referrals G 1/22 and G 2/22, ruling that the EPO is competent to assess entitlement to priority and that the “PCT joint applicants” approach is valid. +

Patent fees will increase up to 36% in Canada as from January 1st, 2024. +

In March, the European Patent Office (EPO) has published a new version of the Guidelines for Examination. +

In November 2021, a Technical Board of Appeal referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal regarding the notion of Plausibility and how it should be approached before the EPO. +

Today, April 14, is World Quantum Day! +

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. +

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. +

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. +

The EPO will conduct additional searches to determine earlier national rights and further determine their prima facie relevance starting September 1, 2022. The EPO already carries out a search for prior European patent applications, which are filed before, and published after, the filing date of a European patent application in question. Such earlier European patent applications are relevant for novelty in the sense of Art. 54(3) EPC. As of September 1, 2022, the EPO will further conduct systematic searches to further identify prior national rights and assess their prima facie relevance free of charge. An earlier national right is +

Montenegro accomplished the final step towards acceding to the European Patent Convention on July 15, 2022, and will thus become the 39th member state of the European Patent Organisation from October 1st, 2022. 1. Until now, Montenegro had the status of Extension State and it was thus possible to extend to Montenegro the protection conferred by the European patent applications or patents by paying the corresponding extension fee within six months of the date on which the European Patent Bulletin mentions the publication of the European search report, or, where applicable, within the period for performing the acts required +

Despite the pandemic filings of European patent applications increased again. 188 600 patent applications were received by European Patent Office (EPO) in 2021, which is an increase of 4.5% in comparison to the previous year. This is the highest number of applications ever filed in one year. The EPO's Patent Index 2021 shows that patent filings rebounded significantly last year after a slight dip in 2020 (-0.6%). In general the number of patent applications is seen as an early indicator of how the budgets of research and development investments of companies worldwide evolve.  Source website of EPO For applications in 2021 the +

The Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS) adopted new WIPO Standard ST.26, which represents nucleotide and amino acid sequences listings in XML, replacing WIPO Standard ST.25. The representation of sequence listings in XML format rather than TXT format intends to improve access to international sequence databases. The new standard further harmonizes sequence listing practice among patent offices and requires mandatory annotation of additional sequence types (nucleotide analogues, D-amino acids, branched sequences), so that more sequence data will be searchable. The filing date (not the priority date) is the reference date that determines if the new ST.26 rules apply. Refiling a +

By order of June 23, 2021, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) rejected two applications for preliminary injunction against the Act of Approval that was adopted on December 18, 2020, for the purposes of ratifying the Agreement of 19 February 2013 on a Unified Patent Court (UPC Act of Approval). This decision was highly expected because the process of ratification of the UPC Act of Approval and thus, the establishment of the UPC has been delayed until the ruling of the Court. The violation of fundamental rights alleged by the plaintiffs is considered by the FFC insufficiently asserted and +

The EPO’s Rules relating to Fees have been amended by decision of the Administrative Council of 15 December 2021. The amended version of the Rules relating to Fees is applicable as from 1 April 2022. An evaluation of the fee adjustments indicates a general increase of about 2.5% for most fees. Raised fees concern in particular the fees for: - Filing fee (EP regional phase) : 130 EUR (increased by 5 EUR), - Filing fee (direct EP application) : 130 EURO (increased by 5 EUR), - Search fee : 1390 EUR (increased by 40 EUR), - Designation fee: 630 EUR (increased by 20 EUR), +

The European Patent with unitary effect (“Unified Patent”) will be introduced soon. The final stage of the preparatory work will be accomplished by the end of this summer and the final missing ratification will then be deposited by Germany. In order to give applicants the possibility to obtain Unitary patent protection for EP applications that are scheduled for grant between the deposit of the final ratification and the entering into effect of the Unified Patent, the EPO announced the following measure for deferring grant. For applications for which a notification under Rule 71(3)EPC has been issued, the applicant may +

Artificial intelligence system called DABUS cannot be named as inventor according to Decisions J 8/20 and J 9/20 of the Board of Appeal of the EPO Legal background Article 81 EPC stipulates that the European patent application shall designate the inventor. Article 60 defines that the right to a European patent shall belong to the inventor or his successor in title. Rule 19(1) EPC defines that the request for grant of a European patent shall contain the designation of the inventor. Present case An applicant has filed two patent applications in which an artificial intelligence system called DABUS was +

The Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) once again initiated a benchmarking survey and let users vote among the world's five largest patent offices for the quality of its patents and services. Again, the EPO has topped the survey this year in both categories like it has ever since this annual survey was started by IAM in 2010. The survey’s results showed that 26 % of the participants rate patents of the EPO as "excellent". This is in increase from 23% last year and places the EPO well ahead of the other IP5 offices. The respondents also agreed that the EPO +