The European Parliament approved on Wednesday, 14th June, a revised version of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA). The text will now pass to the so-called "trilogue", at which will be discussed with the European Commission and the Member States. The AI Act appears to be on a path to adoption in...
Critical Raw Materials and Quantum Technology
Critical raw materials are materials that are essential for the production of high-tech products, but are in limited supply and have in the past few years faced potential supply chain disruptions. These materials are called "critical" because they are used in many modern technologies, including quantum computing, semiconductor electronics, as...
European Unified Patent – which countries does it include?
The start of the new Unified Patent in Europe has now been confirmed for 1 June 2023. It will be possible after this date to request that any European patents granted after this date can be validated as a so-called Unitary Patent covering a number of European countries. The Unitary...
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...
All Change for European Patent Litigation
What will change for you once the UPC is up and running?
European Fund supporting IP for SMEs
The European Commission has implemented a fund to support European Union based small and medium-sized enterprises to obtain and exploit intellectual property rights, such as patents, trademarks and designs. The way the fund operates is slightly different from country to country. Generally, it provides support to SMEs of up to...
Unified Patent Court Agreement – withdrawal of the UK
As is known, the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union on 31 January 2020. One of the unresolved questions was the effect that this withdrawal would have on the so-called Unified Patent Court which is being set up as a litigation forum for Unified European Patents, covering most countries...
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.
Priority Claim for European Design Rights based on Patent Application
Can an application for a community design registration claim priority of an international patent application – and if so for how long? That was the question that the Court of Justice of the European Union had to decide in matter T-579/19. Their decision dated 14 April 2021 was very interesting...
Counterfeiting and Piracy Hotspots
The European Commission’s recently published its second Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List. This list names websites and physical marketplaces located outside of the EU (but are often accessible to European consumers) that are reported to engage in, facilitate or benefit from counterfeiting and piracy. These activities undermine the intellectual property...