All European patent eyes were turned to Munich this week, and the much anticipated EPO Board of Appeal hearing in The Broad Institute’s CRISPR case.
In news that surprised no European Patent Attorneys at all (!), the appeal was dismissed, The Broad Institute’s priority claim was held to be invalid, and the patent was revoked.
The European Patent Office predominantly uses the “problem-solution-approach” to assess whether an invention involves an inventive step. But what happens if the closest prior art document is not enabled, or if the results it describes are not reproducibly obtainable, because essential information is missing? And what if the secondary prior art document arguably discloses some of the information missing in the CPAD, but in a quite different context and without essential information that could motivate the skilled person to take it further and use it in the context of the CPAD? These interesting legal questions formed the backdrop to two EP opposition proceedings and multinational patent litigation that we have had the privilege of working on for several years now. Thorsten Bausch discusses more in this excellent Kluwer Patent Blog.
This week, the UK Supreme Court handed down its much anticipated judgment in the Warner-Lambert v Mylan and Actavis (Lyrica) case. The full decision is 92 pages, but our colleagues at Freshfields (who intervened in the case on behalf of EFPIA and ABPI) have released a very helpful briefing note that can be read here.
Being able to prove chain of title for patent ownership is vital, but doesn’t have to be complicated. Read Lucy’s LinkedIn article that maps out the links in the chain for small entitles and multinationals, and contains advice on choice of assignment language and signatories (and even flags some tax pitfalls!).
Michael Caine from Davis Collison Cave Pty Ltd recently carried out a study to identify the various national requirements for the effective transfer of priority rights in accordance with Article 4A(1) of the Paris Convention. The study focused on the manner in which various countries and regions have implemented the provisions of Article 4A(1) and resulted in some useful guidelines.