Contrary to the online resources available at the EPO, until today files at the GPTO could only be manually inspected by either personally inspecting the files at the premises of the GPTO or by ordering copies. The president of the GPTO has now announced that the inspection of patent and utility model files are possible… more

Open-ended numerical range wording in product claims are common practice in many fields of technology. Examples are features with wording like “at least 20% of…”, “up to 500ml”, i.e. numerical ranges which are open at least one end of the numerical values. 1. Background: The latest developments of the decisions of the Boards of Appeal… more

On 1 January 2014, a new German design law came into force. As a major change to the former law, a new invalidity process is established before the German Patent and Trademark Office. Until now, cancellation of a German design was only available by means of an expensive and time consuming invalidity action before German… more

Legal starting point The “natural” means of protection for the design of, e.g., commodities or articles of daily use is the registered design right. According to Art. 2 (1) No. 4 German Copyright Act, works of “applied art” also enjoy copyright protection, provided they are personal intellectual creations with an individual character. However, fearing a… more

Background EPO’s opposition division found an opposition to be well founded and thus revoked the contested European patent. The Board of Appeal set aside this decision in the appeal instance and confirmed the patent’s validity to the extent of auxiliary claims filed by the patentee. The patentee was of the opinion that the opposition division… more