The second edition of this acclaimed and widely-used book has been thoroughly updated in light of, among others, the revised Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal, which entered into force in January 2020. It provides the first detailed understanding of these new rules and their influence on opposition and appeal proceedings. Dealing with all stages of proceedings before the European Patent Office, this book provides fresh insight into how best to act at each stage to successfully complete a case in opposition and appeal, detailing how opposition divisions and boards of appeal approach the cases before them.

Many applicants use the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system as a first step to obtain patent protection for their inventions in a large number of countries. This practice-oriented book on the PCT – the only such book available – provides expert guidance on how to carry out the treaty’s procedures, from filing a single international patent application to starting prosecution before a plurality of national Offices. Building from an authoritative overview of the PCT’s sources and how they link to form the legal basis for a complete procedure, the contributors elucidate such invaluable practical details as the following: complete details on filing under the PCT, including the means of filing, fee payments, and priority, both in general and in specific national patent Offices; strategy points for making decisions on options in procedures and for drawing attention to important issues; citations from the Practical Advices published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); differences between several regional and national Offices, such as the EPO and the USPTO; extensive treatment of remedies available in each procedure; guidance through the PCT – Patent Prosecution Highway (PCT-PPH); and extensive linking to international and national resources for the PCT. The authors include legal experts from WIPO and the European Patent Office (EPO), as well as well-known patent law practitioners. With its wealth of guidance ranging from a broad introduction to specific details of procedural strategy, this book will be of immeasurable value in the day-to-day practice of patent attorneys, corporate counsel, and paralegals worldwide. It will be of great use to candidates preparing for exams where a profound knowledge of the PCT is required.

This text provides an analysis of European patent law and procedure (including practice under the PCT) and examines the provisions and case-law of the European Patent Convention, the Patent Law Treaty, and Community Patent.

This volume assembles papers commissioned by the National Research Council's Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) to inform judgments about the significant institutional and policy changes in the patent system made over the past two decades. The chapters fall into three areas. The first four chapters consider the determinants and effects of changes in patent "quality." Quality refers to whether patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) meet the statutory standards of patentability, including novelty, nonobviousness, and utility. The fifth and sixth chapters consider the growth in patent litigation, which may itself be a function of changes in the quality of contested patents. The final three chapters explore controversies associated with the extension of patents into new domains of technology, including biomedicine, software, and business methods.

This book provides the first comprehensive study of what cannot be patented and what should not be patentable in Europe.

The book, Visser’s Annotated European Patent Convention, is a commentary on the European Patent Convention and a bestseller in European patent law. The 2021 edition of this preeminent work – the only regularly updated authoritative article-by-article commentary in English on the European Patent Convention (EPC), its implementing regulations, and associated case law provides the complete text of the law annotated with commentary and expert guidance on the interpretation of each paragraph. Since its first edition in 1994 it has provided the European patent community with the necessary insights to practice successfully before the European Patent Office. The EPO recommends the Visser’s Annotated European Patent Convention as the first book in its list of non-EPO/WIPO literature to be used for the preparation of the European qualifying examination. In addition to a thorough updating of developments, new material in the 2021 edition includes the following: Amended EPO Guidelines that entered into force on 01.03.2021 Consolidated discussion of procedures relating to oral proceedings held by video conference Commentary on recent amendments to the implementing regulations Recent decisions of the boards of appeal The 2021 edition is suitable for candidates preparing for the EQE 2022. A free supplemental note will be published providing candidates with an overview of the main legal changes between the 2021 edition and the 31.10.2021 legal cut-off date for the EQE 2022.

With the introduction of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the new European Patent with Unitary Effect, the European patent litigation system is undergoing a set of fundamental reforms. This timely book assesses the current state of European patent litigation by analysing recently published data on Europe's four major patent jurisdictions - the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands - and also looks ahead to examine what the impact of the UPC is likely to be on Europe's patent litigation system in the near future.

This manual provides guiding principles for the use of patent data in the context of S&T measurement, and recommendations for the compilation and interpretation of patent indicators in this context.

Far more than a revised update, this new edition of a well-received guide to US patent law is twice as valuable to European patent practitioners as the previous edition. It is virtually a brand new book. The author, drawing on her recent years at a US firm, has augmented each chapter with practical information – including lines of argumentation to overcome obviousness rejections – and added new chapters, as well as much more detail on petitions and appeals, post-grant proceedings, and litigation. The new edition tells European practitioners not just about the framework of US patent law, but how it is applied. No other such book exists. With an overview of options at each stage of US patent prosecution and enforcement – with particular emphasis on its differences from the EPO system – the new edition details the available courses of action for all the procedural scenarios a European patent attorney is likely to encounter. The coverage is loaded with practical guidance on such aspects of US patent law and procedure as the following: · drafting applications and filing them at the US Patent Office; · applying provisions of the America Invents Act of 2011; · possible responses to a Final Office Action; · costs, fees, and time periods for various procedural actions; · using the US Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (MPEP); · declarations, oaths, and affidavits; · the Quick Path Information Disclosure Statement (QPIDS); · submissions on patentability by third parties; and · supplemental replies during examination proceedings. Every step in the process is described and directly compared as it operates under both the European Patent Convention (EPC) and US patent law. Any practitioner who has unsuccessfully tried to pursue in the US claims that were granted in the EPO will gain a new understanding of the reasons why – and what to do about it. In this highly practical, one-of-a-kind book, European patent professionals will find, detail by detail, exactly what is required at every stage of patent proceedings in the US. There is no other available source of such instantly accessible information for European patent lawyers, in-house counsel and paralegals, or EPC or national patent office officials, to all of whom this book will be of immeasurable value and usefulness. Intellectual property law academics and students will also benefit from the book’s comparative approach.