EPO
EPO launches new PPH agreements with New Zealand and Bahrain
By Troels Peter Rørdam | Posted on March 20, 2025
The PPH network continues to expand, and we at AWA remain one step ahead by closely monitoring the new expansions and emerging opportunities. Recently, European patent applicants have been presented with new opportunities to expedite and simplify the examination of their patent applications. This opportunity adds to the existing 15 agreements that the EPO holds...
Tags: Bahrain, EPO, New Zealand, patents, PPH
Companies with IP generate at least 23.8% more revenue according to latest EU report
By AWA | Posted on February 5, 2025
The report ‘The Intellectual Property Rights and Firm Performance in the European Union’ was published last month and analyses intellectual property records by matching firms with their registered patents, trademarks, and designs from multiple authorities, including the European Patent Office (EPO), European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and various national and regional IP offices within...
Tags: EPO, EUIPO, Intellectual Property, patents, SMEs, trademarks
Validation agreement between EPO and Georgia enters into force
By AWA | Posted on February 9, 2024
On January 15, 2024, the validation agreement between the European Patent Organisation (EPO) and Georgia entered into force. Patent owners can now validate their European patent applications and patents granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) in Georgia on the basis of Georgia’s national law. European patent applications and patents validated in Georgia under the...
Tags: EPO, Georgia, patents, Validation
EPO’s highest legal authority to decide if post-published data can support inventive step
By Michael Bech Sommer | Posted on August 17, 2021
The European Patent Office’s (EPO) highest legal authority, the Enlarged Board of Appeal, is about to be referred questions from the Board of Appeal (BoA) on whether data produced after the filing date of a patent application (post-published data) can be used as the sole basis to support the inventive step of a claim. Essentially,...
Tags: BoA, data, EPO, patents, post-filing data
EPO releases Patent Index 2020: Applications stable despite pandemic, healthcare innovation soars and the US tops geographic origin of applications outside of Europe
By AWA | Posted on March 18, 2021
The European Patent Office (EPO) released its Patent Index 2020 this week. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, filings remained stable with increases in applications from the medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. These increases helped to counter declines seen in some sectors like mechanical engineering. Top Industries As a result of the current global situation, it...
Patenting Antibody and Cell Therapies – What to Do and What Not to Do
By Joanna Applequist, Louise Jonshammar, Niklas Mattsson | Posted on September 28, 2020
Antibody drugs and cell therapies are at the heart of new biotechnology science. Not only do they show great promise when it comes to curing disease and helping patients, but also in creating value and growth. Biotech companies need to protect their scientific results and the corresponding investments with strong and durable patents. This is...
Tags: antibodies, Biotechnology, cell therapies, EPO, Litigation, patents
Clarifying the patentability of medical use inventions in China
By AWA | Posted on May 20, 2020
At the end of 2019, the new Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) emerged. It has gone on to infect millions of people worldwide and so far, claimed the lives of over a quarter of a million people. COVID-19 has disrupted the world economy like never before. At the same time, it has brought unprecedented global attention to disease...
Tags: china, CNIPA, EPO, Gilead, inventions, JPO, medical use, patents, Remdesivir
EPO rules plants and animals exclusively obtained by essentially biological processes not patentable
By AWA | Posted on May 18, 2020
It has been clear that essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals are explicitly excluded from patentability under Article 53(b) EPC. However, patentability of products of the essentially biological processes, such as plants and animals, has been questioned and repeatedly visited by the Enlarged Board of Appeal in recent years. On 14...
Tags: animals, biological, Board of Appeal, EPO, interpretation, patents, plants
The Crispr-Cas9 patent tussle continues: The case of UC Berkeley at the EPO
By Joanna Applequist | Posted on November 15, 2019
In Europe, we don’t do things the way the Americans do… Oral proceedings in the opposition against UC Berkeley’s (UC’s) main European patent EP2800811 are scheduled for all of three (!) days in February of 2020 at the European Patent Office (EPO). The opposition division’s (OD’s) preliminary and non-binding opinion, provided on the 30th of...
Denmark champions patents as fundamental to preventing climate change
By AWA | Posted on September 26, 2019
Danish Minister for Industry, Business and Financial Affairs Simon Kollerup stated that protecting the intellectual property rights of innovative green companies is essential. Kollerup’s comments come as a Joint Report from the European Patent Office (EPO) and European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published on IPR-intensive industries and economic performance in the European Union. The...
Tags: CCMT, climate-change, Denmark, EPO, EUIPO, green innovations, green transition, patents
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