I attended this seminar @ DePaul University College of Law The USA Business Impact of A Changing European Patent Regulatory Environment which was co-sponsored by the Association of Patent Law Firms
The presentations & my notes for each are included below:
-All European countries will eventually ratify the London agreement, but it still makes sense to have translations done in appropriate countries just to be sure your back is covered.
-the boards of appeal consist of judges, not examiners
-1600 of 2000 cases/year are settled by decisions of the boards of appeal
-early is best for new documents & arguments in general procedures & timings
-oral proceedings take 1 day-1 week, depending on the # of parties & you receive a decision that day, but no reasoning behind it
-there is no unified patent law in Europe, it’s just a bundle of national patent laws-they can contradict 1 another & still stand
-minutes are a joke
-you can still go back to national courts
-there is no doctrine of equivalence
oppositions before the epo
-documents are 90% of the procedure, & it’s better if they’re in the public domain with prior public use & a written trace
-hearing the parties is seldom done
-opinions by experts are unlikely to be considered
-arguments can be thrown out for being badly argued
-markers are needed for thesis documents referenced in university libraries
Since these presentations were given by lawyers, I’m going to reserve my commentary other than to say, if you’re a patent attorney, I’m sure there’s lots of valuable information here. Otherwise, there’s a lot of detail with which you need not concern yourself.
