COVID-19 Update

The abolition of the ten-day rule is not the only procedural change being made at the European Patent Office (EPO) in November 2023.

We are delighted to report that Beck Greener Associate, Kashif Syed, has passed both the written and practical examinations set by Nottingham Law School to qualify as a Higher Courts Advocate.

The first referral of 2023, case G1/23, has been made to the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO, seeking clarification on the enablement test in relation to prior use of a product.

In 2021, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) began a transformation programme to update its system and services.

Beck Greener has been ranked by the legal directory IAM Patent 1000 for patent prosecution in the recently published IAM Patent 1000 2023 listings. This year marks the third year running for the firm being ranked in this category. This ranking from IAM Patent 1000 means that Beck Greener is highly praised by sources and amongst the most competitive in the field.

The concept of "bad faith" has no definition under the UK Trade Marks Act 1994 ("the Act").

The European patent system makes its biggest change in forty years, as the Unified Patent Court Agreement enters into force on 1 June 2023.

The EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) has recently announced the eagerly awaited decision in respect of the G 2/21 (“Plausibility”) referral made in 2021.

Mauritius has filed instruments of accession to the Madrid Protocol with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, resulting in the Madrid System of International Trade Marks now covering 130 countries.

In a major landmark on the road towards entry into effect of the Unified Patent Court Agreement, the Sunrise Period opens on 1 March 2023.

We are delighted to announce that Beck Greener has been recognised as a Silver Tier firm for prosecution and strategy in the 2023 edition of the World Trademark Review (WTR) 1000: The World’s Leading Trademark Professionals for the 5th consecutive year.

With the recent announcement of the delay to the implementation of the UPC Agreement to 1 June 2023, and the start of the “Sunrise Period” to 1 March 2023, the EPO has announced that two transitional measures previously signaled at the start of 2022 will come into force on 1 January 2023.

Instruments of accession to the Madrid Protocol were filed by Belize on 24 November 2022 with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, taking the number of countries covered by the Madrid System of International Trade Marks to 129 countries.

The roadmap for the UPC has been postponed by two months.

The EPO has decided, following completion of a pilot project, that from 1 January 2023 video conference (VICO) will be the default format for Oral proceedings in opposition. The practice of recent months and years is here to stay.

The EPO has announced that it has updated its mailing period rules. The update will end the current mailing period arrangements with effect from 1 November 2023.

Beck Greener has been ranked as a leading firm in the Intellectual Property: Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys UK-wide section of the legal directory Chambers & Partners for the 4th year running.

After many years of discussion, preparation, and recent delays, it has finally been announced that the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) will come into effect on 1 April 2023, with the so-called Sunrise Period beginning on 1 January 2023.

Any publicly available, enabling disclosure that occurs before the filing or priority date of a patent application before the European Patent Office (EPO) is currently novelty destroying (unless there has been a breach of confidence). A grace period in which a patent application can still be filed following a disclosure of the invention by the applicant itself exists in a number of countries but there is no equivalent provision in the European Patent Convention (EPC). In June 2022, the EPO released a report reviewing the impact that implementing a grace period in Europe would have for applicants. The purpose of the review was to provide an evidence-based assessment for the potential economic impact of the introduction of a grace period in Europe.