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The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation while the Administrative Council acts as its supervisory body as well as, to a limited extent, its legislative body. The actual legislative power to revise the European Patent Convention lies with the Contracting States themselves when meeting at a Conference of the Contracting States.
Prior art is a concept in patent law used to determine the patentability of an invention, in particular whether an invention meets the novelty and the inventive step or non-obviousness criteria for patentability. In most systems of patent law, prior art is generally defined as anything that is made available, or disclosed, to the public that might be relevant to a patent's claim before the effective filing date of a patent application for an invention. However, notable differences exist in how prior art is specifically defined under different national, regional, and international patent systems.
The EPC 2000 or European Patent Convention 2000 is the version of the European Patent Convention (EPC) as revised by the Act Revising the Convention on the Grant of European Patents signed in Munich on November 29, 2000. On June 28, 2001, the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation adopted the final new text of the EPC 2000. The EPC 2000 entered into force on December 13, 2007.
The London Agreement, formally the Agreement on the application of Article 65 of the Convention on the Grant of European Patents and sometimes referred to as the London Protocol, is a patent law agreement concluded in London on 17 October 2000 and aimed at reducing the translation costs of European patents granted under the European Patent Convention (EPC). The London Agreement is an agreement between some member states of the European Patent Organisation, and has not altered other language requirements applying to European patent applications prior to grant.
A patent family is "a set of patents taken in various countries to protect a single invention ." In other words, a patent family is "the same invention disclosed by a common inventor(s) and patented in more than one country." Patent families can be regarded as a "fortuitous by-product of the concept of priorities for patent applications".
Alison Jane Brimelow CBE is a British civil servant and former chief executive and Comptroller General of the UK Patent Office, now known as the Intellectual Property Office. She was the fifth President of the European Patent Office, a position she held from 1 July 2007 to 30 June 2010.
Espacenet is a free online service for searching patents and patent applications. Espacenet was developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) together with the member states of the European Patent Organisation. Most member states have an Espacenet service in their national language, and access to the EPO's worldwide database, most of which is in English. In 2022, the Espacenet worldwide service claimed to have records on more than 140 million patent publications.
epoline is a set of web-based computer programs and services enabling applicants, patentees and their representatives to file patent applications online before the European Patent Office (EPO), as well as to monitor the status of patent applications during their prosecution and patents during an opposition. The epoline products and services have been implemented and are maintained by the EPO, according to the Decision of the President of the EPO dated 29 October 2002.
The Official Journal of the European Patent Office is a monthly trilingual publication of the European Patent Office (EPO). It contains "notices and information of a general character issued by the President of the European Patent Office, as well as any other information relevant to [the European Patent Convention (EPC)] or its implementation". The Official Journal is published in German, English and French, the three official languages of the EPO. The three texts coexist in the same issue of the journal. The journal is published on the last day of the month.
The European Patent Bulletin is a weekly trilingual publication of the European Patent Office (EPO), generally issued every Wednesday. It contains "entries made in the Register of European Patents, as well as other particulars, the publication of which is prescribed by [the European Patent Convention (EPC)] or its implementation".
The European Patent Register, also known as the Register of European Patents, is a public register kept by the European Patent Office (EPO). It contains legal information relating to published European patent applications and European patents granted under the European Patent Convention (EPC). The register notably provides the current legal status of European patent applications and patents, such as for instance "whether a patent application has been published, whether a patent has been granted, what the outcome of opposition proceedings was or whether a patent has been revoked".
Google Patents is a search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications.
The grant procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO) is an ex parte, administrative procedure, which includes the filing of a European patent application, the examination of formalities, the establishment of a search report, the publication of the application, its substantive examination, and the grant of a patent, or the refusal of the application, in accordance with the legal provisions of the European Patent Convention (EPC). The grant procedure is carried out by the EPO under the supervision of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation. The patents granted in accordance with the EPC are called European patents.
The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a set of initiatives for providing accelerated patent prosecution procedures by sharing information between some patent offices. It also permits each participating patent office to benefit from the work previously done by the other patent office, with the goal of reducing examination workload and improving patent quality.
The Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the European Patent Office (EPO). The Administrative Council acts as the Organisation's supervisory body as well as, to a limited extent, its legislative body. The actual legislative power to revise the European Patent Convention (EPC) lies with the Contracting States themselves when meeting at a Conference of the Contracting States. In contrast, the EPO acts as executive body of the Organisation.
The European Round Table on Patent Practice (EUROTAB) is described as "a pan-European group consisting of lawyers in the patent field", or a body where the national patent offices of the Contracting States of the European Patent Convention (EPC) and the European Patent Office come together to discuss differences in practice and see whether a harmonized approach is possible.
The European Patent Judges' Symposium is a biennial symposium, with the claimed aim of providing a platform for national judges from legal systems with differing traditions to exchange experiences and to thereby promote mutual understanding in the development of European patent law.
Benoît Battistelli is a French civil servant, former president of the European Patent Office (EPO) (2010-2018), and former head of the French National Industrial Property Institute (INPI).
During the grant procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO), divisional applications can be filed under Article 76 EPC out of pending earlier European patent applications. A divisional application, sometimes called European divisional application, is a new patent application which is separate and independent from the earlier application, unless specific provisions in the European Patent Convention (EPC) require something different. A divisional application, which is divided from an earlier application, cannot be broader than the earlier application, neither in terms of subject-matter nor in terms of geographical cover.
The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is a patent classification system, which has been jointly developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The CPC is substantially based on the previous European classification system (ECLA), which itself was a more specific and detailed version of the International Patent Classification (IPC) system.
References
- ↑ "Obituary: Ferdinand Rudolf" (PDF). Patent Information News. European Patent Office (3): 3. September 2014. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
- 1 2 European Patent Office web site, Patent Information News Archived 2011-08-27 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- ↑ Patent Information News [Deutsche Ausgabe]. OCLC 183336545 . Retrieved 5 November 2016– via WorldCat.
- ↑ Article 14(1) EPC
- ↑ Michael J. White, esp@cenet Europe's Network of Patent Databases, Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship ( ISSN 1092-1206), Number 47, Summer 2006.
- ↑ "Patent Knowledge News - Launch of the first edition - EPO - Discussion forums".
