The challenges in obtaining European patent protection for inventions in the field of artificial intelligence have been highlighted in a recent decision by the European Patent Office’s Board of Appeal in dealing with a European patent application Nr. 14725807.3 by Google for “classifying resources using a deep network”. The patent...
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Disclosing an Invention
The German Federal Court of Justice recently provided guidance on the level of disclosure of the invention required for a patent to be valid. The case (number X ZR 16/20 from 29 March 2022 - headlined "Übertragungsleistungssteuerungsverfahren") concerned a mobile communications system for communication between a base station and a...
How does the EUIPO deal with virtual goods, non-fungible tokens and the metaverse?
Companies are offering a wide range of products and services relating to Web 3.0. Many of these goods and services are completely new and no legal framework is in place on how to classify and deal with these products and services. This also includes Intellectual Property Rights as national and...
Neural Networks are not Inventive
A recent German Patent Court decision No. 19 W (pat) 7/22 from 1 June 2022 reflected the practice of the European Patent Office in assessing the inventive step of an invention employing machine learning or artificial intelligence. The German Court decided that the mere inclusion of a reference to a...
Wie spitze ist die Marke Spezi?
Vor dem Landgericht München I wurde kürzlich darüber verhandelt, inwiefern die Paulaner-Brauerei Lizenzgebühren für den von ihr vertriebenen „Paulaner Spezi“ an die Brauerei Riegele in Augsburg leisten muss. Die Brauerei Riegele vertreibt selbst ein Cola-Mix-Getränk mit dem Namen Spezi und hat gegen Paulaner geklagt. Es ist unbestritten, dass die Brauerei...
Industrial Technologies 2022 Grenoble
This week three of our colleagues (Robert Harrison, Kilian Müller, and Eva Magd) took part in the EU-organised conference on Industrial Technologies 2022, held in Grenoble (France). The event is designed for research and technology organizations (RTOs), representatives of industrial companies as well as policymakers to discuss current trends, challenges...
Preparing Patent Specifications for Quantum Technologies
The requirements for a patent specification or description for an invention in the field of quantum technology are the same as for other patents. It is necessary to show that the claims of the granted patent define the subject matter for which patent protection is sought and the granted claims...
When is an invention “novel”?
One of the key requirements to get a patent application is that the invention needs to be "new" or "novel". That may sound a simple definition - the European Patent Convention states an invention is "considered to be new if it does not form part of the state of the...
Unified Patent Court – Administrative Committee established
The next step in setting up the new European Unified Patent Court has been established on 22 February with the inaugural meeting of the Court's Administrative Committee, according to an announcement on the court's website. The meeting adopted a number of items of secondary legislation, including the rules on the...
All Change for European Patent Litigation
What will change for you once the UPC is up and running?