Patent Restoration

Sometimes you may find yourself in a position where your rights have been unintentionally lost or your patent has lapsed.

There are many approaches that can be taken to restoring lost rights and reinstating lapsed patents, depending on the circumstances of the case and the rules that apply in a particular country. These vary widely.

We often reinstate lapsed patents after non-payment of renewal fees by demonstrating that due care had been taken to meet the deadline. On many occasions this is achieved even when the initial explanation of events suggests that this is unlikely to have been the case.

We have succeeded in restoring priority claims of late filed national and international applications. We also re-establish rights in situations where an international application has erroneously not been brought into a national or regional phase.

We are well known for our specialist expertise in this area, and for our high success rate. Other firms refer cases to us for our ability to retrieve situations where it appears that all is lost.

Our work in this area is led by Toby Hopkin and John Leeming.

Our briefings on the topic of patent restoration can be found below:

• Late-Filed PCT Application
• Demonstrating Due Care
• Late Entry Into European Regional Phase
• Re-Establishment of Rights at the European Patent Office Under Article 122 EPC