Posts Tagged: "epo"

Is the United States’ Nonobviousness Test ‘Plausibly’ Similar to the EPO/UK Inventive Step Standard?

Recent cases in the European Patent Office (EPO), the UK, and United States illustrate substantive differences between these jurisdictions as they continue to develop their inventive step/nonobviousness frameworks. In particular, the EPO and UK have recently provided guidance on a concept known as “plausibility,” i.e., whether the scope of the patent must be justified by the patentee’s technical contribution to the art in solving an identified problem. “If it is not plausible that the invention solves any technical problem then the patentee has made no technical contribution and the invention does not involve an inventive step.” Sandoz Limited v. Bristol-Meyers Squibb Holdings [2023] EWCA Civ 472. That standard, however, is quite dissimilar from the United States’ statutory standard of whether “the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious…”

New EPO Unitary Patent Dashboard Shows 5,000+ Requests Since Launch

The European Patent Office (EPO) today launched a dashboard on Unitary Patents, which will be updated daily and breaks down data on requests for Unitary Patents by technology field, country of origin, language of translation, proprietors’ profile and status of registration. According to an EPO press release, there have been 670 requests filed on average per week since the Unitary Patent went into effect on June 1, “demonstrating high interest in the new system.” 

How the UPC and European Patents with Unitary Effect Reach Beyond Europe to the United States

The impact of the long-awaited launch of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is hard to overstate. While litigators and patent portfolio managers are immediately feeling the impact in Europe, surprisingly, they should also expect an impact on information disclosure statement (IDS) strategy for U.S. patent applications. To understand the impact, this article provides a background on how the European Patent Office (EPO) and UPC consider earlier national rights, how patent applicants can address earlier national rights to prevent invalidation at the UPC, how earlier national rights identified in a European patent application can affect a U.S. application and should be addressed in an IDS, and how this information can be used for monetization and litigation.   

China Gains on Top Filers at European Patent Office

U.S. companies and inventors still filed more patent applications with the European Patent Office (EPO) than any other country, according to its Patent Index 2022, which was released today. The index showed that U.S. patent applications numbered 48,088, a 2.9% increase from 2021. However, China’s filings jumped by 15.1% over 2021, keeping it in fourth place out of the top five countries of origin for applications and narrowing the gap between it and Japan, the number three filer.

European Patent Filings Reached Record Number in 2021; Huawei Largest Applicant

There were 188,600 European patent applications filed last year, an annual increase of 4.5%, according to figures published by the European Patent Office (EPO) on April 5. Despite the impact of the pandemic, applications increased to a record level following a slight decline in 2020. The United States was once again the top country for applicants, accounting for a total of 46,533 applications in 2021 (an increase of 5.2%) or 25% of all filings. It was followed by Germany and Japan, with China ranking fourth. Applications from China increased by 24% to 16,665 in 2021; they have quadrupled in the past decade. Other notable increases were from Sweden (up 12% to 4,954), Canada (up 18.4% to 2,083) and India (up 16.5% to 817).