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
Challenges to the validity of the “Patent Cooperation Treaty joint applicant” have been a problem for many applicants at the European Patent Office. On October 10, 2023, the EPO’s highest authority, the Enlarged Board of...more
Your patent is finally filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (or the office of your local country). Then you remember your attorney saying something about patents being jurisdictional, whatever that means…....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
Speeding up patent prosecution and quickly obtaining an issued patent is generally a good thing. The earlier a patent is issued, the earlier it can protect a product and be enforced against third party infringers. And...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
Many people applying for a patent in the United States only consider filing in other countries as an afterthought. You should consider whether you want to file in foreign countries before filing a nonprovisional application...more
Continuing hostilities by the Russian Federation in Ukraine have garnered a number of responses from countries around the world. These include responses from patent offices, including the United States Patent and Trademark...more
On February 24, 2022, the world watched in horror at Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Lost in the destruction and devastation inflicted on Ukraine and her people, is Russia’s effective nationalization of patents in...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
Just about anywhere in the world is where one may claim a patent with an international PCT patent application. There are, after all, 154 countries bound by the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). But almost no one, except...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
The Leahy-Smith “America Invents Act” (hereinafter, “AIA”) was signed into law ten years ago, on September 16, 2011. We have learned extensively from the enactment and this article is part of a series of lessons learned. ...more
Kilpatrick Townsend partner Karam J. Saab, in cooperation with GreyB, offers his key takeaways for “Taking Advantage of Bypass Continuations based on Recent USPTO Practice Trends for US National Phase Entry.” ...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
Carbon capture technologies generally pertain to the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) by certain materials or systems. Such materials or systems can then process the captured CO2 in various manners, such as through storage at...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
For the life science industry, patents are more than just tools for restricting the commercial activities of direct competitors. Patents are being used more and more to generate substantial additional returns on research and...more