This week, over protests from European patent practitioners, the EPO decided to add new limitations on when a divisional application may be filed, beginning next April. Of late, the EPO has become increasingly hostile towards what it regards as “abusive” filing of divisionals—practices such as repeatedly re-filing a divisional patent applications to avoid the effects of a rejection, or filing a divisional before an allowed application issues to pursue broader claims than were allowed.
Category Archives: International
European Maintenance Fees Fiasco
I had a revealing conversation with one of my foreign associates the other day. I had asked them to continue reminding me of patent maintenance fees for one of my clients, even though the client would be responsible for the payment of the fees. I got a strange level of pushback from the foreign associate. When I asked why, they said “Because we would not know if the fee had been paid.” What? “Just go online” I said. Well, that opened up a whole can of worms I never knew existed.
Posted in International Tagged annuity, Europe, France, Italy, maintenace fee, patent Leave a comment
EPO fees continue to rise on April 1, 2009
Starting April 1st of this year, the European Patent Office (“EPO”) phases in the second of its fee increases. This increase threatens to have serious financial impacts for patent applicants, especially for startups needing to conserve cash. If you are considering applying for the benefits of patent protection in Europe, or already have an application in progress, there are some things you can do now.