Disclaimers in European Patent Applications

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (12) ◽  
pp. 1204-1216
Author(s):  
Michał Barycki

Abstract A European patent application may be amended by, among others, deleting a part of the claimed subject matter under established conditions or by the incorporation of an undisclosed or disclosed disclaimer. Disclaimers are a useful tool in order to maintain the balance between the practical needs of applicants and the interests of third parties in legal clarity and completeness. The incorporation of disclaimers may not extend beyond the content of the European patent application as filed and the protection it confers. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how an applicant can introduce a negative technical feature into the patent application in the light of the extensive judicial practice of the Technical and Enlarged Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office. The author has analysed the criteria for disclaimers set out in decisions G 1/03, G 2/10 and G 1/16 in accordance with the general notion of patent law and requirements of patentability. Additionally, this problem was also characterized in the light of the judicial practice of national courts and legislations of the EU Member States.

2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (9) ◽  
pp. 918-924
Author(s):  
Martin Stierle

Abstract This paper will focus on the issue of designating artificial intelligence systems as inventors in the current framework of European patent law. Most recently, the European Patent Office rejected two patent applications which indicated a machine called DABUS as the inventor of the claimed subject-matter. The paper will analyse the grounds of the decisions in detail, thereby reflecting on the current approach of the European Patent Office to such designations and on the concept of inventorship within the European patent system in general.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-191
Author(s):  
Zuzana Potužáková ◽  
Jan Öhm

Abstract In addition to internationalization and growing volumes of international trade in goods, the importance of expenditure on research and development (R&D) has grown significantly. National patent protection has become rather insufficient with increased international trade in goods, which has resulted in the importance of the international patent protection. The main aim of the article is to analyse the relation between R&D investment and the number of patent applications filed with the European Patent Office (EPO) after the year 2000, when the EU‘s Lisbon Strategy was launched. The authors have focused primarily on the differences among the EU macro-regions, which are based on the socioeconomic models. Conclusions imply that one percentage point of R&D expenditure generates roughly 100 EPO applications and the findings also show that individual macro-regions have the identical scattered data. However, dispersions in the individual groups of the EU Member States after the year 2000 differ. The EU Member States are starting to vary significantly in the intensity of R&D support also within each macro-region, thus disparities increase within the EU. Therefore, the attitude to GERD is considered to be an important factor contributing to the greater economic disparities within the EU.


Author(s):  
Mitja Kovac ◽  
Salvini Datta ◽  
Rok Spruk

<p>Our data on the legal status of patent applications is from European Patent Office's (EPO) PATSTAT database which contains bibliographic and legal status firm-level patent data from leading industrialized and developing countries for the period 1995-2015. Sixteen different forms of legal statues are broadly classified and systematized into four broad categories. The first category entails the patent applications sent to EPO. This category is used to code firm-level observations based on whether the patent application has been submitted to EPO. The second category comprises the pooled firm-level observations for which the patent application has been approved and official validated. This category comprises the firms for which a valid patent has been approved in a given year. The third category comprises the firms whose patent application has been rejected by EPO on various ground which exceed the scope of this paper. And fourth, the remaining forms of legal status were coded into miscellaneous category which amounts to a minor fraction of the whole set of applications and which are omitted from the empirical analysis.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-242
Author(s):  
Muriel Lightbourne

Recent developments in the field of European law, in relation to subject-matter consisting of living material, raise a string of basic issues as to the legal qualification of certain techniques used in agriculture and medicine, such as CRISPR-Cas9, and regarding their appraisal under European patent law. The present article reviews a series of decisions, including the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in case C-528/16, the decision issued on 7 February 2020 by the French Council of State and the Opinion of the European Patent Office Enlarged Board of Appeal of 14 May 2020 on Referral G 3/19.


Author(s):  
L. Bently ◽  
B. Sherman ◽  
D. Gangjee ◽  
P. Johnson

This chapter explains the processes involved in granting patents as well as the factors that applicants must take into account when deciding whether to patent an invention in the UK. The role of patent agents and the choice of route to take to secure grant of the patent are considered. The chapter then documents the procedures in the application for a patent, paying particular attention to some of the key features of the UK and European Patent Office patent application processes together with the Patent Cooperation Treaty. It also describes situations in which applicants and patentees are able to amend their applications and the restrictions under which such amendments operate. Finally, it looks at a number of proposals to reform the patent procedure.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-32
Author(s):  
Bartosz Soloch

Abstract Recent decisions of European and national courts, as well as those of arbitral tribunals, concerning the Achmea saga seem to be plentiful enough to draw preliminary conclusions as to the relationship between EU law, intra-EU international investment agreements (IIAs) and the national laws of EU-Member States. In order to get the proper picture of the situation, however, it is necessary not only to analyse the recent decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and their consequences from these three perspectives, but, equally, to understand how they interact with each other. Such an analysis indicates the real possibility of the emergence of a rift between the practice of the EU and national courts rejecting the validity of investment arbitration agreements, on the one hand, and investment tribunals, on the other. In any case, such a divergence would put into question the IIAs’ claim to provide a stable regulatory framework for international investments in the EU, which, in turn, would strengthen the argument for termination of intra-EU IIAs.


2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandy Webster

This site contains information on copyright, designs, patents and trademarks. The legal decisions page includes selected decisions issued by the Patent Office since the beginning of 1998 and links through to the Patents Court website, European Patent Office website and Copyright Tribunal. News and press releases on aspects of intellectual property and the Trade Mark, Patent and Design Journal notices can also be viewed here with all pages including a note of when they were last updated. A page with information on patent and trademark searches and a search facility for the whole site is available. A list of forms can be accessed and viewed along with guidance notes and fees information. Progress on implementation of the EU Copyright Directive is brief but helpful. The glossary of terms covers very few terms and some pages would benefit from hyperlinks being added such as the information about international treaties. URL: http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/index.htm


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Răzvan Anghel

The CJEU judgement in Sindicatul Familia case (C‑147/17) is a steppingstone for the working time Directive 2003/88 interpretation and application and for the European debate regarding the foster carer for children statute, the remuneration and working time. The article presents the national court decision following the CJEU judgement accompanied by the author´s commentaries. The purpose of the article is to provide legal professionals with the information on the practical results of the dialog between CJEU and national courts and the way national courts use European legislation interpretations given in the preliminary ruling procedure aiming at its uniform application in the EU member states.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-142
Author(s):  
Răzvan Anghel

The CJEU judgement in Sindicatul Familia case (C‑147/17) is a steppingstone for the working time Directive 2003/88 interpretation and application and  for the European debate regarding the foster carer for children statute, remuneration and working time. The article presents the national court decision fallowing the CJEU judgement accompanied by the author commentaries. The purpose of the article is to offer to legal professionals the information on the practical result of the dialog between CJEU and national courts and the way national courts uses the European legislation interpretations given in the preliminary ruling procedure that aims an uniform application of it in the EU member states.


Author(s):  
Alina Onţanu ◽  
Marco Velicogna

The number of cases is measured through a broad range of quantitative variables used in various studies and policy papers as key indicators of the volume of activity of national courts. Additionally, these variables, together with other data (e.g. time needed to resolve a case, number of judges, etc.) are part of a broader discourse on the efficiency of justice systems. However, such discourse can be problematic when data is not actually comparable. To raise the attention on this very relevant but poorly explored topic, this paper analyses the comparability of the caseload data by focusing on apparently simple categories like civil and commercial litigious or non-litigious cases and administrative cases. The EU Justice Scoreboard and CEPEJ data and national case definitions in France, Italy, and Romania are used to assess the most relevant justice EU datasets. The findings point towards significant differences between analysed systems that suggest extreme caution should be exercised when using such data for scholarly, legislative or policy discourses.


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