News

In June 2017, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced a freeze on inflation-based official fee increases for 2018. Instead, the EPO will selectively adjust certain official fees, effective from 1 April 2018. These fee adjustments, summarised below, relate to the handling of PCT applications, online filings and appeal fees. International (PCT) applications where the EPO […]

Introduction Artificial intelligence (AI) is an interdisciplinary field of computer science with the goal of enabling machines to behave and reason in an intelligent manner.  Early approaches to AI centred on rule-based systems.  Such systems were configured to operate within highly constrained environments where the behaviour of the AI system was specified beforehand using formal […]

The UK has now ratified the Hague Agreement for the International Registration of Industrial Designs.  This means that from 13 June 2018 the UK can be designated in new international design applications under the Hague system. International design applications allow applicants to submit a single design application to the International Bureau of the World Intellectual […]

Following the UK IPO’s consultation[1] on patent fees, the UK IPO has decided to go ahead with a number of changes[2] to the fees for applying for patent protection and renewing granted patents. These changes include both increases to current fees, and the introduction of new fees. These changes will come into effect on 6 […]

This week saw the first decision from the EPO Opposition Division related to the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology.  The patent in question, EP2771468, which was granted to the Broad Institute, MIT and Harvard University was revoked after the filing of nine oppositions. The PCT application from which EP2771468 derived was filed naming Broad, MIT and […]

On 11 January, Latvia ratified the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA), bringing the total number of ratifications to fifteen. As it stands, applicants will be able to protect their inventions in at least 17 countries (the existing 14 plus UK and Germany) with a single Unitary Patent (UP) when the system is implemented. […]