Insights

The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office issued the decision in referral G2/21 on 23 March 2023. This referral concerned the admissibility of post-published evidence in the assessment of inventive step. The headnote to the decision states:  Evidence submitted by a patent applicant or proprietor to prove a technical effect relied upon...

Following an earlier dispute over a trademark relating to a certain caterpillar cake, Marks and Spencer PLC (M & S) and Aldi Stores Limited have recently come to blows over another area of intellectual property; namely, Registered Designs. A recent judgement of His Honour Judge Hacon sitting in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, High Court...

The EPO are increasing their official fees on 1 April 2023. This fee increase is unusual in that the EPO has historically raised its fees every two years.  However, this latest increase comes one year after the last rise on 1 April 2022.  The last fee increase saw fees rise by around 2.5%, whereas the...

A recent decision from the EPO’s Technical Boards of Appeal (T2803/18) highlights a pitfall for applicants wishing to patent systems and methods that utilise machine learning algorithms. The claimed invention in this opposition appeal relates to the monitoring and processing of sensor signals to automatically determine the characteristics of wetness events in moisture absorbing articles...

The EPO introduced the latest version of the Guidelines for Examination on 1 March 2023. Some of the revisions are highlighted below. Removal of the ten-day notification rule Part E-II, 2.3 and 2.4 have been updated in anticipation of the abolition of the EPO’s ten-day notification rule that will take effect on 1 November 2023....