Following nearly twenty-five years of negotiations, members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently adopted a treaty implementing the new requirement for international patent applicants to disclose in...more
Earlier this year, Uruguay announced two major updates in the patent and regulatory spheres that are likely to encourage outside investment in Uruguayan industry, particularly for agbiotech: Uruguay is acceding to the Patent...more
Over the past two decades, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has been working on a Design Law Treaty focused on aligning examination and procedural guidelines associated with what have historically been...more
It has been four years since amendments to the Patent Act and Patent Rules were made, bringing the Patent Law Treaty (PLT) into force in Canada. The most consequential changes have proven to be the handling of missed...more
The Background: There has been a growing trend to invalidate European patents by challenging their formal priority and using intervening prior art. The Technical Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office ("EPO") referred...more
The enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 includes the Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022 (UAIA), directed toward increasing innovation of small businesses and inventors in America. Congress is using...more
In Konda v. Flex Logix Technologies, Inc., the Federal Circuit held that a provisional application incorporated by reference in a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application was prior art against the later filed claims of the...more
The International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Working Group held its 14th session from June 14 to 17, 2021. Patent attorney Mary Drabnis (Baton Rouge)...more
It is not often that one's vote counts, especially in geopolitics. So it struck me, in researching for another article, that filing a patent application in Ukraine could make a difference. Per the latest World...more
The U.S. is unique in that a Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT, application can enter national phase examination via two distinct routes: as a national phase application under Title 35 of the U.S. Code, Section 371, or as a...more
Patent protection outside the U.S. can be important for a company to enter the global market and to build relationships with partners and investors both domestically and internationally. In general, there are two options to...more
Patent prosecution—everything that takes places after a patent application is filed until it issues—can be a complex and lengthy process. A majority of time and attention is usually spent on getting a patent application...more
As we have reported previously, substantial amendments to the Canadian Patent Act and new Patent Rules came into force on October 30, 2019...more
Two important, but sometimes overlooked issues in patent prosecution, particularly for companies with worldwide patent portfolios, are: 1) when a foreign filing license must be obtained; and 2) how to determine when an export...more
Shutdown orders due to the COVID-19 virus pandemic have created economic disruption, causing companies to scale back on intellectual property (IP) expense. This creates an opportunity to move ahead of the competition. This is...more
Imagine that you are a founder of a revolutionary technology startup in Canada. Your company is about to release its blockbuster product that will disrupt the entire industry and catapult your company to fame and...more
While women are awarded 53% of PhDs, they accounted for only 12% of named inventors on U.S. patents granted in 2016. Fewer than 30% of Patent Cooperation Treaty applications name a woman inventor....more
On October 30, 2019, the final stage of the new Canadian Patent Law will come into force. There will be many changes to Canadian Patent Law and practice. ...more
On 30 July, the Court of Appeal of The Hague ruled on the formal entitlement to priority following from a US provisional patent application. The attack on priority in this case is part of a recent trend by parties in patent...more
Keeping Intellectual Property (IP) recordal projects under control can sometimes be a daunting task. With the exception of certain transactions, such as stock purchase agreements, recently acquired intellectual property...more
Associate Tom Cowan presented "Patent Basics for the Aerospace Industry," at the Space Foundation Space Commerce Workshop at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California. As the keynote speaker for the event, Tom...more
We salute the originators and implementers of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and the European Patent Convention (EPO) on their fortieth anniversary and look forward to continued use of both long into the future....more
Introduction - A blockchain is a distributed ledger verified and copied across thousands of computers. One analogy is Google Docs, which provides multiple parties access to the same document. Blocks in a blockchain are...more
In vitro gametogenesis (IVG) is a recent development in reproductive technology, and has been used for creating mouse embryos in vitro. IVG includes obtaining cells from a donor (such as skin cells), and differentiating the...more
The recent Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd. case brought to light a little-known quirk in how national stage patent applications affect the length of one’s patent term. That case involved a drug company losing five days of...more