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UPC Delays Due to Difficulties in Serving Proceedings Under the Hague Service Convention Summary Serving proceedings out of the jurisdiction in which they have been issued can be a time-consuming exercise. Two recent decisions of the UPC’s Munich Local Division concerning service of applications for preliminary measures in related cases between Air Up Group GmbH (the German Applicant) and Guangzhou Aiyun Yanwu Technology Co., Ltd (the Chinese Defendant) illustrate the nature and extent... Read more
Oral Proceedings Scheduled for the Enlarged Board of Appeal Case G 1/24 Regarding Use of the Description When Interpreting the Claims The Board of Appeal in T 0439/22 referred questions to the Enlarged Board of Appeal in order to clarify the extent to which the description should be referred to when interpreting the claims. The case is pending as G 1/24 and in-person oral proceedings have now been scheduled for 28 March 2025. The questions referred by the Board of Appeal... Read more
New Referral to the EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal Regarding the Status of an Intervener – G 2/24 The EPO has announced here that the Technical Board of Appeal in decision T 1286/23 has referred questions to the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal regarding the status of a third party intervener in appeal proceedings. A third party can “intervene” in ongoing opposition proceedings if either (a) infringement proceedings have been brought against that third party by the patentee,... Read more
Teva Fined €462.6 Million by European Commission for Abusing EPO’s Patent System The European Commission has today imposed a €462.6 million antitrust fine on Teva for abusing its dominant position in the market for Copaxone, a blockbuster drug for treating multiple sclerosis. Teva’s abusive conduct was said to consist of prolonging legal uncertainty over the enforceability of its patents for Copaxone, and disparaging a rival’s generic version. It is rare of the... Read more
EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal Applies Relaxed Standards for Assessing Priority Entitlement In a recently-published decision T2360/19, the EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal applied new liberal standards when assessing legal entitlement to priority, following a relaxation of this aspect of the law. The opposed patent, covering gene editing technology known as CRISPR, was granted from a divisional application stemming from parent EP2771468. The parent patent had previously been revoked by the Technical... Read more
J A Kemp Authors the Whitepaper ‘Patent Filing Considerations in View of Revised EU Clinical Trial Regulation Transparency Rules’ with DLRC In collaboration with DLRC, a leading Regulatory Affairs Consultancy, we’ve developed a white paper outlining key patent filing considerations. Authored by Karen Ng, and James Biddlecombe (Business Transformation & CTR Lead at DLRC Regulatory Consultancy), this paper emphasises the importance of early and ongoing collaboration between legal and regulatory teams throughout the life cycle of clinical trials to optimise patent filing opportunities. Download... Read more
A First Revocation Action from the UPC’s Central Division – Amgen Anti-PCSK9 Antibody Patent Held Invalid In a recent decision in case 459505/2023 (UPC_1/2023), the UPC’s Court of First Instance (Munich Central Division) revoked Amgen’s EP3666797, relating to anti-PCSK9 antibodies. This decision was the Central Division’s first ever revocation decision and represents the latest in a long-running global dispute between Amgen, who market the cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha®, and Sanofi/Regeneron, who market the drug Praluent®. The Central... Read more
J A Kemp Nominated for Patent Prosecution Firm of the Year, United Kingdom, at This Year’s Global IP Awards J A Kemp has been nominated for ‘Patent Prosecution Firm of the Year, United Kingdom’, at The Global IP Awards 2024. The Global IP Awards recognise the outstanding achievements of law and attorney firms in litigation, prosecution, and transactional work during 2023 and 2024. Winners are compiled based on the extensive research carried out for the IAM Patent 1000 and... Read more
COP28 Series: Climate Change and Health, Communicable Diseases
COP28 Series: Climate Change and Health, Communicable Diseases Vector-borne disease: tackling the spread of disease-carrying insects through biology COP28 was the first of United Nations Climate Change Conference to feature a health programme, a welcome first given that the scientific community has been reporting the impact of climate change on our health for almost two decades. COP28’s ambitions to address the climate’s impact on our health were further... Read more
COP28 Series: Fresh Water Availability and Urban Water Resilience
COP28 Series: Fresh Water Availability and Urban Water Resilience “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.” Samuel Coleridge’s 1798 poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, laments the Mariner’s vast surroundings of undrinkable seawater. Little did Coleridge likely predict that these punishing conditions would affect even the land-dwellers over two centuries later. An estimate from the United Nations states that 55 percent of the world’s population was... Read more
COP28 Series: Climate Change and Health, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs)
COP28 Series: Climate Change and Health, Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) According to the World Health Organization (WHO), non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 41 million people each year, which is equivalent to 74% of all deaths globally. Of these, the biggest killers are cardiovascular disease, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3 includes an ambitious target of reducing premature deaths from NCDs by one third from... Read more
A First Substantive Decision of the UPC Court of Appeal – 10x Genomics vs Nanostring In a recent decision in case UPC_CoA_335/2023, the UPC’s Court of Appeal overturned a preliminary injunction granted by the Court of First Instance (Munich Local Division) to 10x Genomics, Inc. against Nanostring Technologies based on EP 4108782. As previously reported, the Munich Local Division held at first instance that there was a sufficient degree of certainty that the asserted patent... Read more
J A Kemp Appoints New Associate to its Cambridge Office Patent Attorney Ruth Shelton joined J A Kemp this month from another leading patent firm in Cambridge. Ruth specialises in chemical subject matter including pharmaceuticals, small molecule chemistry, first and further medical uses, synthetic chemistry, nutraceuticals, dyes and detergents. She is experienced in the drafting, filing and prosecution of UK, European and international patent applications. She joins J A Kemp... Read more
Gut Microbes: Do They Have A Role To Play In Social Anxiety?
Gut Microbes: Do They Have A Role To Play In Social Anxiety? Our body is home to trillions of microbes which form our microbiome. Over the past decade scientists have discovered that our gut microbiome, the bacteria and microorganisms that reside within our gastrointestinal system, play a hugely important and much larger role in our health than once thought. A high gut microbiota diversity has been linked to better general health. Similarly,... Read more
The Highest Form of Flattery? Taking Action Against Impersonation
The Highest Form of Flattery? Taking Action Against Impersonation A BBC News article has highlighted a recent increase in the use of well-known restaurant names in fraudulent company registrations at Companies House. The article reports that over 750 ‘fake’ companies, many with names containing a misspelling of a well-known restaurant business or proprietor (according to data compiled by an independent fraud consultant), have been added to the Register in... Read more
FRET-Based Biosensors in Diagnosing Biomedical Pathologies
FRET-Based Biosensors in Diagnosing Biomedical Pathologies Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), also referred to as Förster resonance energy transfer, is a physical phenomenon whereby energy from a donor fluorophore is transferred to an acceptor fluorophore. This form of resonance energy transfer is strongly dependent on close localisation of the donor and acceptor fluorophore, wherein a typical distance range for FRET to occur efficiently is 1-10nm. Given... Read more
Preparing for a Pandemic: What Awaits After COVID-19?
Preparing for a Pandemic: What Awaits After COVID-19? Earlier this year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 to no longer constitute a public health emergency of international concern. Whilst this appears to officially mark the end of that pandemic, scientific communities generally agree that there will inevitably be another one. It is less clear, though, what the causal agent of the next pandemic will be. In this... Read more
The EPO’s Legal Board of Appeal Tightens Formal Requirements for Recording Assignments Electronic signatures have revolutionized the way we execute agreements and other documents in the digital age. Their use in the past few years has accelerated, in part driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because they are often more convenient and are generally considered to be more secure than handwritten signatures. Despite the widespread and increasing acceptance of digitally signed... Read more
EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal Significantly Relaxes Formal Requirements for Making a Valid Priority Claim The EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal has issued its much-anticipated decision in consolidated cases G 1/22 and G 2/22 on the issue of priority entitlement. The background here is that it has become increasingly common for third parties to challenge European patents in opposition proceedings on the basis that the identity of the applicant is not identical to the applicant... Read more
EPO Report Reveals Extensive Innovation in the Additive Manufacturing Sector
EPO Report Reveals Extensive Innovation in the Additive Manufacturing Sector Over the last few years, the additive manufacturing industry has experienced strong growth, with revenue tripling from USD 6 billion in 2016 to USD 18 billion (EUR 16.17 billion) in 2022. A report recently released by the European Patent Office (EPO), entitled “Innovation Trends in Additive Manufacturing“, demonstrates that this growth has been accompanied by extensive innovation, and identifies several... Read more
Recent Developments in UK and EU Protection Schemes for Geographical Indications On 12 September 2023, the EU IPO announced that the European Parliament approved a new set of Regulations which allow craft and industrial products to be protected using similar rules to those covering Protected Geographical Indications (“PGIs”) for foods and drinks. Existing EU PGI Registers The EU already operates European Union-wide Registers of PGIs for agricultural products and foodstuffs, wines... Read more
Clean Beauty: Patenting Natural Products in the Cosmetics Industry
Clean Beauty: Patenting Natural Products in the Cosmetics Industry In a society that is becoming increasingly focused on wellness and sustainability, consumers are becoming ever more conscious of what’s actually in the beauty products and cosmetics that they are putting on their bodies and how those ingredients can impact their health and well-being. In recent years, this has led to the emergence of the “clean beauty” movement. It’s now... Read more
Cryo-electron Microscopy – The Technique Uncovering The Secrets of Structural Biology
Cryo-electron Microscopy – The Technique Uncovering The Secrets of Structural Biology It’s a commonly cited fact that we know more about the farthest reaches of space than we do about the deepest depths of the ocean. But perhaps even less is known about the inner workings of cells. Many of us will remember the diagrams of cell structures we learnt in our basic biology classes, crudely represented by a vaguely circular... Read more
Ion Channels as Anti-Epileptic Drug Targets
Ion Channels as Anti-Epileptic Drug Targets Ion channels are pore-forming protein complexes that allow for the transport of charged ‘ions’ across the cell membrane. The flow of ions through these channels results in the production of an electrical signal. Ion channel signalling is crucial for regulating numerous vital functions throughout the human body, including cardiac function (heart contraction and rhythm) and neuronal signalling in the brain... Read more
EPO Stays Examination and Opposition Proceedings Relating to Prior Use in Light of Enlarged Board Referral G1/23 As reported recently, the issue of anticipation by prior use has been referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The referral is pending as case G1/23. The EPO has now issued a notice in which it immediately stays all cases currently in examination or opposition in which the decision depends entirely on the outcome of the referral to Enlarged Board. This is a... Read more
The Cardiovascular Component of COVID-19
The Cardiovascular Component of COVID-19 When Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of Corona Virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), became an emerging clinical emergency the initial approach was to treat this novel pathogen as a respiratory disease typical of other coronaviruses. It became quickly apparent that the clinical manifestations of COVID-19 were not limited to the respiratory system. As we move forward... Read more
Epigenetic “traffic lights” Could Expand Our Knowledge on How Cancers Work
Epigenetic “traffic lights” Could Expand Our Knowledge on How Cancers Work Since the discovery of the structure of DNA, the accepted central dogma of molecular biology states that the genetic information contained in our DNA is transcribed into short-lived messenger RNA, which is translated into the proteins that carry out the vast majority of our cellular functions. Remarkably, all of our cells contain essentially the same DNA, but clearly cell types... Read more
The Future of Building Materials – Are Fungi the Answer?
The Future of Building Materials – Are Fungi the Answer? As the Earth’s population continues to grow we are faced with a high demand for the construction of more houses and buildings to provide shelter around the world. According to the United Nations, building and construction accounts for approximately 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Given the high demand for housing, and the environmental effect that this industry has globally,... Read more
Organocatalysis: Reflecting on Two Decades of Innovation
Organocatalysis: Reflecting on Two Decades of Innovation Catalysis open the doors of chemistry and provides us with greater access to the natural resources in the world around us. Specialised molecules (catalysts) can offer certain chemical reactions lower energy, faster pathways towards their products, all while not being consumed in the process. In the humanised world of chemistry, catalysts are the motorways, allowing a faster journey to the... Read more
J A Kemp Associate Promotions 2023 J A Kemp has promoted six patent attorneys to Associate following successful completion of professional qualifications. Carsten Reinhard works with inventions in the fields of plant science, agriculture, and microbiology, including CRISPR/Cas9 technology, plant disease resistance genes and effectors, insecticidal proteins and entomopathogens, transformation and genotyping methodologies, and silage inoculants. He is based in our Cambridge office. Flick Kendrick has qualifications... Read more
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