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Amendments Under The European Patent Convention
Article 123 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) relates to the amendments under the EPC, i.e. the amendments to a European patent application or patent, and notably the conditions under which they are allowable. In particular, prohibits adding subject-matter going beyond the content of the application as filed, while prohibits an extension of the scope of protection by amendment after grant. In addition, limits the types of amendments that can be done during Opposition procedure before the European Patent Office, opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office (EPO), and relates to the correction of errors in documents filed with the EPO. Background The EPC provides that an applicant may in principle amend the documents constituting their European patent application after filing, as it is considered that the applicant may not have a full picture of the prior art at the time when the application is drafted and filed with the EPO. Article 123(1) EPC: Procedural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Patent Convention
The European Patent Convention (EPC), also known as the Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, is a multilateral treaty instituting the European Patent Organisation and providing an autonomous legal system according to which European patents are granted. The term ''European patent'' is used to refer to patents granted under the European Patent Convention. However, a European patent is not a unitary right, but a group of essentially independent nationally enforceable, nationally revocable patents, subject to central revocation or narrowing as a group pursuant to two types of unified, post-grant procedures: a time-limited opposition procedure before the European Patent Office, opposition procedure, which can be initiated by any person except the patent proprietor, and limitation and revocation procedures, which can be initiated by the patent proprietor only. The EPC provides a legal framework for the granting of European patents, via a single, harmonised p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
G 1/03 And G 2/03
G 1/03 and G 2/03 are two decisions of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), which were both issued on April 8, 2004. The decisions, which are identical, relate to the allowability of introducing disclaimers during the prosecution of a European patent application or during opposition proceedings relating to a granted European patent. More precisely, they relate to whether and under which circumstances an amendment introducing a negative limitation to a claim is allowable, when neither the negative limitation nor the subject-matter excluded by it from the scope of the claim have a basis in the application as filed (). Decision The Board ruled that introducing a disclaimer which has no basis in the application as filed may be allowable in order to: # restore novelty by delimiting a claim against state of the art under , i.e. against a novelty-destroying conflicting application (a first European patent application is said to be a "conflicting applic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
G 1/10
G 1/10 is a decision issued on 23 July 2012 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), holding that cannot be used to request corrections of the text of a European patent. Overview The referral lies from interlocutory decision T 1145/09 by Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.03, who referred two questions to the Enlarged Board. The first question was: The second question was: In its answer to the first question, the Enlarged Board of Appeal ruled that "since is not available to correct the text of a patent, a patent proprietor's request for such a correction is inadmissible whenever made, including after the initiation of opposition proceedings." In its answer to the second question, it ruled that "in view of the answer to the first referred question, the second referred question requires no answer." See also * Amendments under the European Patent Convention Article 123 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) relates to the amendments under the EP ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divisional Applications Under The European Patent Convention
During the grant procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO), divisional applications can be filed under out of pending earlier European patent applications. A divisional application, sometimes called European divisional application, is a new patent application which is separate and independent from the earlier application, unless specific provisions in the European Patent Convention (EPC) require something different. A divisional application, which is divided from an earlier application, cannot be broader than the earlier application, neither in terms of subject-matter nor in terms of geographical cover. Background The possibility to file a divisional application is provided in many patent systems and is guaranteed by Article 4.G. of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883, to which more than 170 countries are Contracting Parties. Some basic characteristics of a divisional application are as follows: :"A divisional application is an appl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
G 1/05 And G 1/06
G 1/05 and G 1/06 are decisions of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the European Patent Office (EPO) that were issued on 28 June 2007 and answer questions relating to divisional applications under the European Patent Convention (EPC). The two decisions were published in the Official Journal of the EPO in May 2008. Background Article 76(1), second sentence, EPC states that a divisional application :"may be filed only in respect of subject-matter which does not extend beyond the content of the earlier application as filed; in so far as this provision is complied with, the divisional application shall be deemed to have been filed on the date of filing of the earlier application and shall have the benefit of any right to priority." Questions Two similar sets of legal questions have been referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal and have been considered by the Board in consolidated proceedings. In case T 39/03, Technical Board of Appeal 3.4.02 referred the following qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disclaimers (patent)
In patent law, a disclaimer are words identifying, in a claim, subject-matter that is not claimed or another writing disclaiming rights ostensibly protected by the patent. By extension, a disclaimer may also mean the amendment consisting in introducing a negative limitation in an existing claim, i.e. "an amendment to a claim resulting in the incorporation therein of a 'negative' technical feature, typically excluding from a general feature specific embodiments or areas". The allowability of disclaimers is subject to particular conditions, which may vary widely from one jurisdiction to another. Origins Possibly the earliest mention of patent disclaimers was in the British " Letters Patent and Trademark Amendment Act 1835", in the sense of a right to renounce one's patent monopoly or a part thereof. That right was subject to safeguards to make sure that the disclaimer was a true renunciation, rather than an extension of the monopoly. In 1865, in a case before the House of Lords, ''Ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Federal Court Of Justice
The Federal Court of Justice ( , ) is the highest court of civil and criminal jurisdiction in Germany. Its primary responsibility is the final appellate review of decisions by lower courts for errors of law. While, legally, a decision by the Federal Court of Justice is only binding with respect to the individual case in which it enters, '' de facto'' the court's interpretation of the law is followed by lower courts with almost no exception. Decisions handed down by the Federal Court of Justice can only be vacated by the Federal Constitutional Court for violating a provision of the German constitution, the Basic Law. In addition to the court's appellate duties, a few judges of the Federal Court of Justice act as investigating judges in criminal investigations led by the Public Prosecutor General for a small number of exceptional offenses (such as crimes against humanity and the formation of terrorist organisations). As such, they are responsible for issuing search and arres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grant Procedure Before The European Patent Office
The grant procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO) is an '' ex parte'', administrative procedure, which includes the filing of a European patent application, the examination of formalities, the establishment of a search report, the publication of the application, its substantive examination, and the grant of a patent, or the refusal of the application, in accordance with the legal provisions of the European Patent Convention (EPC). The grant procedure is carried out by the EPO under the supervision of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation. The patents granted in accordance with the EPC are called European patents. In other words, the grant procedure before the EPO is the procedure leading to the grant of a European patent or to the refusal to grant a European patent. The procedure starts with the filing of an application and ends with the grant of a European patent or the refusal of the patent application by the EPO, or the withdrawal of the appl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
G 2/88
G, or g, is the seventh letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''gee'' (pronounced ), plural ''gees''. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the single-storey (sometimes "opentail") and the double-storey (sometimes "looptail") . The former is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children. History The evolution of the Latin alphabet's G can be traced back to the Latin alphabet's predecessor, the Greek alphabet. The voiced velar stop was represented by the third letter of the Greek alphabet, gamma (Γ), which was later adopted by the Etruscan language. Latin then borrowed this "rounded form" of gamma, C, to represent the same sound in words such as ''recei'', which was likely an early dative form of '' rex'', meaning "king", as found in an "early Latin inscription." Over time, how ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
G 2/10
G 2/10 is a decision issued on 30 August 2011 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) on the subject of disclosed disclaimers A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship. In contrast to other terms for legally operative langua .... It lies from decision T 1068/07 by Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.08, who referred a question to the Enlarged Board. The referred question was: In its answer to the referred question, the Enlarged Board of Appeal ruled that "an amendment to a claim by the introduction of a disclaimer disclaiming from it subject-matter disclosed in the application as filed infringes if the subject-matter remaining in the claim after the introduction of the disclaimer is not, be it explicitly or implicitly, directly and unambiguously disclosed to the skilled person using common general knowledg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Person Skilled In The Art
A person having ordinary skill in the art (abbreviated PHOSITA), a person of (ordinary) skill in the art (POSITA or PSITA), a person skilled in the art, a skilled addressee or simply a skilled person is a legal fiction found in many patent laws throughout the world. This hypothetical person is considered to have the normal skills and knowledge in a particular technical field (an "art"), without being a genius. This measure mainly serves as a reference for determining, or at least evaluating, whether an invention is non-obvious or not (in U.S. patent law), or involves an inventive step or not (in European patent laws). If it would have been obvious for this fictional person to come up with the invention while starting from the prior art, then the particular invention is considered not patentable. In some patent laws, the person skilled in the art is also used as a reference in the context of other criteria, for instance in order to determine whether an invention is sufficientl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invention
An invention is a unique or novelty (patent), novel machine, device, Method_(patent), method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an idea is unique enough either as a stand-alone invention or as a significant improvement over the work of others, it can be patented. A patent, if granted, gives the inventor a proprietary interest in the patent over a specific period of time, which can be licensed for financial gain. An inventor creates or discovers an invention. The word ''inventor'' comes from the Latin verb ''invenire'', ''invent-'', to find. Although inventing is closely associated with science and engineering, inventors are not necessarily engineers or scientists. The ideation process may be augmented by the applications of algorithms and methods from the domain collectively known as evolutionary robotics, artificial intellige ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
