The latest episode in the efforts to obtain a single European patent and patent court to cover (most of) the countries in the European Union has overcome its latest hurdle with the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) to reject the request for an interim injunction to stop...
European Directive on Open Data
The deadline for European Union Member States to transpose the European Union's 2019 Open Data Directive into national law expired on 16 July 2021. The new rules update a directive originally agreed in 2013 and address some of the issues that arose in implementing that directive.
Patentfreigabe wegen Corona-Pandemie
Vor dem Hintergrund der weltweiten Corona-Pandemie ist eine intensive Diskussion über die Herstellung und Verteilung der Impfstoffe im Gange. Dabei wurden zuletzt Forderungen lauter, den Patentschutz für Impfstoffe gegen das Corona-Virus SARS-CoV-2 aufzuheben. Die Befürworter dieser Forderung versprechen sich davon eine raschere Steigerung der weltweiten Impfstoffproduktion. Ungeachtet der Frage, ob...
Patent Searching – Freedom to Operate or Patentability?
Let's suppose that you have developed a new product and you want to carry out a prior art search of existing patents. There's often a misconception about the objectives for a search. There's often confusion between a search based on "freedom to operate" and "patentability". In some cases, the main...
Trade and Cooperation Agreement with UK Approved by the European Parliament
The European Parliament finally put its approval to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union on 28 April 2021 and the Agreement came into full effect from Saturday 1 May. The Agreement includes a number of measures on protection of intellectual property which we...
International Trademark Registration Strategies
With a few exceptions, such as in the European Union or some African countries, trademarks are territorial rights and only give protection in the country in which the trademark is registered. If you are selling products and services in a large number of countries, then it may be necessary to...
Open Source Software and Patent Infringement
There's a lot of misconception about open-source software an patents. It is possible for an open-source pprogram to infringe a patent
Responding to “Patent Trolls”
How should you respond when receiving a letter about allegations of patent infringement?
Database Management Systems – the European Approach
On March 1, 2021, the European Patent Office (EPO) updated its Guidelines and the new update includes a substantial new section on how to patent database management systems. Given the importance of data and database protection for, e.g., artificial intelligence, this update could be significant in the next few years....
European Patent Office – draft new guidelines
The European Patent Office revises its guidelines for patent examination every two years and these normally appear in November. The last update was due in November 2020, but has been delayed because of the Covid19 pandemic and these will now come into effect on 1 March 2021. A preliminary version...