On 01 May 2010, Albania became a member of the European Patent Organisation.

Albania joins the 27 EU member states plus Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland and Turkey as states for which the European Patent Office provides a centralised patent application examination procedure. Added to this are the extension states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia who recognise European patents on request.

In an important decision, the deputy commissioner of patents recently ruled that late national stage entry of a patent application will not be approved without a reason for the delay.

The deputy commissioner ruled that since the standard for allowing a late application enter the national stage is “due care”, this standard must be met. “Due care” includes, as a very first and basic step, finding out what the deadline is.

However, the interesting part of the decision is not the (expected) rejection of the petition, but rather the examples that the deputy commissioner brought to cases when such a petition will be allowed.

One such a case is when the applicant simply confused Israel (IL) with Iceland (IS). In such a case, the applicant did try to find out the date, but made an understandable mistake and hence, a petition for late entry of the national stage will be allowed.

Another case is a case when an applicant mistakenly thought that Sunday is a day off in Israel, like in most of the world, and filed the application on the Monday thereafter.

During passover, the Israeli PTO will not be working. Between March 29, 2010 and April 6, 2010, no documents will be accepted.

Documents that need to be filed should be filed a day after the vacation is over.

The UK Patent Office published a new litigation manual. The manual can be accessed on the UK IPO’s website, here:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/pro-types/pro-patent/p-law/p-manual/p-manual-litigation.htm

Many countries have laws prohibiting nationals to apply for a patent in a different country in certain cases, before getting permission. US residents, for example, require that every patent will first filed in the US to obtain a foreign filing license.

In the UK, section 23 of the Patent Act states that if you are a UK resident and your application contains information about military technology, or could harm national security or public safety, you must either:

• apply first for the patent in the UK. You can apply abroad 6 weeks after your UK application date, as long as not have been told otherwise.
  or
• get permission from the UK IPO before you apply.

A permission should be requested from the Security Section, Room GR70 at the folloing address:

Intellectual Property Office
Concept House
Cardiff Road
Newport
South Wales
NP10 8QQ
United Kingdom

Phone: +44 (0)1633 813558
Fax: +44 (0)1633 814415

Here, Hon. Justice Kitchin establishes that the test for acknowledging a priority claim is that the person claiming priority must be the same person who filed the priority application or his successor in title in the date of filing the application claiming the priority. Here is the relevant quote:

“In my judgment the effect of Article 4 of the Paris Convention and section 5 of the Act is clear. A person who files a patent application for an invention is afforded the privilege of claiming priority only if he himself filed the earlier application from which priority is claimed or if he is the successor in title to the person who filed that earlier application. If he is neither the person who filed the earlier application nor his successor in title then he is denied the privilege. Moreover, his position is not improved if he subsequently acquires title to the invention. It remains the case that he was not entitled to the privilege when he filed the later application and made his claim. Any other interpretation would introduce uncertainty and the risk of unfairness to third parties. In reaching this conclusion I derive a measure of comfort from the fact that the Board of Appeal of the EPO has adopted the same approach to the interpretation of Article 87 EPC in two cases: J 0019/87 and T 0062/05. “

The case was about an artificial heart valve rendered invalid as it was obvious in light of a few prior art references.

The priority application was a US provisional application.

Up until March 2008, software patents were hardly allowed in the UK. The breakthrough was on the High Court of Justice Decision in the matter of SYMBIAN LTD V. Controller General of Patents, where a method of accessing DLL files was claimed.

Since this blog is not about philosophy but about bottom lines – here it is: UK law is being put in line with European law. Software claims will be allowed if they include a technical effect. Naturally, it will take examiners time to get the point, but they will eventually.

Here is the bottom line from the ruling:

“The question I must now consider is whether the decision prohibits the patenting of all computer programs and, in particular, those which under the old approach would have been considered to make a conventional computer operate in a new way so as to deliver a relevant technical contribution…UK-IPO has apparently concluded that it does and so has reverted to its previous practice of rejecting all computer program claims … I do not detect anything in the reasoning of the Court of Appeal which suggests that all computer programs are necessarily excluded,”