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A recent judgement relating to software patents has put to rest earlier concerns about the law being of an Orwellian nature similar to… ‘All software patents are equal – but some software patents are more equal than others.’ The G1/19 decision by the European Patent Office issued on 10 March gives absolute clarity on a […]

It is important to ensure that a patent application correctly claims priority.  There have been a number of cases before the EPO where this has not been done and the priority date has been lost, resulting in the application being refused, or the granted patent being revoked, due to prior art published during the priority […]

In our previous article ‘UK companies still overpaying corporation tax’, we examined the slow uptake of the Patent Box scheme and how UK-based businesses are still missing out on significant corporate tax savings. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, unveiled his 2021 budget, it became evident that the Patent Box scheme could now […]

Data1 recently released by HMRC indicates that relief claimed under the Patent Box scheme in the 2018-2019 fiscal year increased by only 2.6% from the previous year, suggesting that companies are still missing out on huge savings in corporation tax. What is the Patent Box scheme? The Patent Box enables companies who have patented their […]

One of the requirements for an invention to be patentable before the EPO is that the invention is novel. Novelty over a prior art disclosure is commonly conferred by the presence of at least one feature which is not disclosed in the relevant prior art document. However, this is not the only method. For example, […]

Last June saw the UK Supreme Court in Regeneron v Kymab overturn a decision from the Court of Appeal on sufficiency. They raised the bar to require that the disclosure of a patent supports substantially every embodiment of the claims (for our previous report of this case, see here). We have now seen the first […]