The Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) is set to begin on June 1, 2023. Under the UPC framework, a single court proceeding could result in simultaneous revocation of European Patents across multiple European Union (“EU”) countries, including France and Germany. A three-month “Sunrise Period” is set to begin March 1, 2023….
Canadian Patent Examination Significant fee increases will be effective at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (“CIPO”) on October 3, 2022 related to excess claims (claims over 20) and the number of examination reports it issues during prosecution. These changes may negatively impact the breadth of patent protection an applicant could…
Seven years after the Member States of the EU signed the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (“UPCA”), the Unitary Patent (“UP”) and the Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) are likely to commence during the second half of 2022. This promises to bring significant changes to patent protections across Europe, potentially…
Clinical drug candidates are often claimed in a patent as a pharmaceutical composition or formulation with a specified concentration range of the drug or an excipient; as being purified within certain temperature or pH ranges; or in a method of treating a disease by administering the drug at a certain…
Life science companies developing new therapeutics – both small molecule and biologic – know that obtaining long patent term for their products is a key driver of valuation and revenue. A particular challenge in this respect is minimizing the loss of patent term during drug development. Fierce competition in the…
