J 1/24 gave limited hope that filing a divisional application after grant of the parent application might be possible. A recent decision in Board of Appeal case T 700/25 has cast some shade...

The EPO introduced the latest version of the Guidelines for Examination on 1 March 2023. Some of the revisions are highlighted below.

The European Patent Office (EPO) has recently ruled that patients in a clinical trial were not members of the public such that the trial did not constitute prior public use of a pharmaceutical formulation...

Earlier this year, the United States Copyright Office released part 2 of its report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence discussing the Copyrightability of AI works (CAIP2).

In Opposition and Appeal proceedings at the EPO, the questions of when and how to turn to the description to interpret the claims can be the turning point for whether a Patent is revoked or maintained.

For several years now the European Patent Office (EPO) has insisted upon the adaptation of the description to avoid inconsistencies with amended claims. However, various Boards of Appeal have taken different views...

Where an element of a mark is non-distinctive for certain goods and/or services, the fact that these may be included in a broader term in the specification does not necessarily mean the mark is non-distinctive...

Turkish company Gürok Turizm ve Madencilik AŞ ("Gürok") has held figurative mark no.011224821 in classes 8, 11, 19, 21, 35, 37 and 39 since 2013.

European patent No. 2 484 209 owned by Sumitomo Chemical Company, Limited was opposed by Syngenta Limited on multiple grounds including lack of inventive step.

G 1/24 sets out that the description and drawings must be consulted when interpreting claims in all cases, even if there is no ambiguity in the claims. But what does "consult" mean?

Claims can contain alternatives, e.g. “…wherein the communication link is a wired link or a wireless link…”. T 1186/24, a recent decision from the European Patent Office’s Boards of Appeal, reminds us that the requirements of the European Patent Convention must be met by all alternatives within a claim.

As we approach the final tennis grand slam championship of the year, the US Open, we have reflected on how Artificial Intelligence is transforming various aspects of these championships...

The AI Action Summit was held on 10-11 February 2025 in Paris and hosted over 1,000 attendees from more than 100 countries.

We recently reported on the Enlarged Board of Appeal's Decision in G 1/24 that made it clear that the description and drawings must be consulted when interpreting the claims.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA) of the EPO issued their ruling in case G 2/24 last week, confirming its earlier ruling in G 3/04 that a third party intervening at the appeal stage is a party...

Until the early 19th century, exotic fruits such as pineapples were associated with luxury and status, available only to the wealthiest few.

Sometimes things move very fast in UK patent law. Today, eight days after the England and Wales High Court decision overturning a refusal of a patent application...

Boult has a long history of working with start-ups in the green technology space and beyond, guiding them during the patent process from portfolio reviews to drafting, filing and ongoing protection.

The General Court of the European Union upheld Decathlon's registered EU design for its EASYBREATH full-face snorkelling mask against a technical function challenge, while the UK High Court found Chiaro's Elvie breast pump design had narrow infringement scope after excluding technical features. These contrasting outcomes reveal how the exclusion for designs dictated solely by technical function can dramatically affect protection scope, even for products designed to fit the human body.

Since its launch in 2023, the Unitary Patent system has registered over 29,939 patents, with strong uptake from medical technology, large enterprises, and international applicants, particularly from Germany and the U.S.