The European Patent Office has announced forthcoming changes to its fees, in line with its usual practice of biennial fee adjustments. The January 2020 edition of the EPO Official Journal sets out further details of the fees that will be applicable from...
The European Patent Office has recently issued a decision that a machine cannot be named as inventor for a European patent application. On 27 January 2020, the EPO refused two European patent applications (EP3564144A1 and EP3563896A1, relating to a food...
The Supreme Court’s judgement in Shanks vs Unilever could lead to increased costs for businesses which benefit from profitable patents. But can these costs be avoided? In the UK, the right to be granted a patent for an invention which is devised in the...
The UK formally leaves the EU today on, 31 January 2020. A transition period will run up until the end of 2020. Regardless of whether a modified version of the Withdrawal Agreement is negotiated, it is unlikely that the current draft proposals/terms relating to...
The EPO Boards of Appeal convened recently to offer a final ruling in respect of EP2771468, a patent granted to the Broad Institute in respect of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology. This case has attracted a lot of attention, not least because of the potential...