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The Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office (or, for short, the EPO Guidelines) are general instructions, for the examiners working at the European Patent Office (EPO) as well as for the parties interacting with the EPO, [notes 1] on the practice and procedure at the EPO in the various aspects of the prosecution of European patent applications and European patents.
The EPC requires that national courts must consider the "direct product of a patented process" to be an infringement. Article 64(2) EPC reads: If the subject-matter of the European patent is a process, the protection conferred by the patent shall extend to the products directly obtained by such process.
The purpose of the EPO opposition proceedings is to give members of the public, such as competitors of the patent proprietor, the opportunity to challenge centrally before the EPO the validity of a granted European patent. [8] [notes 1] No commercial or any other interest whatsoever need be shown. [3]
Manual of Patent Office Practice (MOPOP) (Canadian patent law) Manual of Patent Practice, issued by the United Kingdom's Intellectual Property Office; Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office; United States Patent Classification; Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR)
EPO headquarters in Munich. European patent applications can be filed at the EPO at Munich, Germany, at The Hague, Netherlands, [11] at Berlin, Germany, [12] or "if the law of a Contracting State so permits, at the central industrial property office or other competent authority of that State". [13] This latter provision is important in some ...
A characteristic of European patent law as it stands today is that European patents granted by the European Patent Office (EPO), and patents granted by national patent offices are available, [3] and may possibly –if permitted by national law and, if so, to the extent permitted by national law [4] – co-exist within a given jurisdiction.
This is a list of special types of claims that may be found in a patent or patent application.For explanations about independent and dependent claims and about the different categories of claims, i.e. product or apparatus claims (claims referring to a physical entity), and process, method or use claims (claims referring to an activity), see Claim (patent), section "Basic types and categories".
[10] [11] According to the Guidelines, the request can even be filed after expiry of the patent. [12] However, the request may not be filed while opposition proceedings are pending. [13] Precedence, i.e. priority, is always given to opposition proceedings. [1] This prevents limitation from occurring where an opposition has already been lodged. [14]