Legal Updates

In a recently issued decision by the EPO’s Board of Appeal (BoA), the BoA held that claims directed to a combination of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) at particular doses were not entitled to the priority date because the priority application only contained the clinical trial protocol rather than the clinical trial data. The BoA held there was no pointer in the priority application to the specific dose combination claimed, as the dose combination disclosed in the protocol was only to ...

Whilst the fee changes are subject to parliamentary approval, they are almost certain to take effect – read on to learn more. The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) recently announced that it intends to increase its official fees for patents, trade marks and designs from 1st April 2026. These increases are subject to approval by the United Kingdom’s Parliament – however we expect that parliamentary approval will be a mere formality.  As such, clients should expect these inc...

Following the UPC Court of Appeal (CoA) decision in Abbott v Sibio (APL_39664/2024, 14 February 2025) we now have a second CoA decision on added matter in expert Klein v Seoul Viosys (UPC_CoA_764/2024 & UPC_CoA_774/2024, 2 October 2025). expert Klein v Seoul Viosys is notable as the first judgment on added matter by the CoA on a substantive infringement/validity appeal. Note – HGF Partner Bernhard Ganahl represented expert Klein together with  Dr. Dirk Jestaedt of KRIEGER MES. Both decisi...

Last week, the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) issued its Decision that both a product put on the market before the date of filing of a European patent application, and technical information related thereto but also available before said date, should not be excluded from the prior art for the sole reason that its composition or internal structure could not be analysed and reproduced by the skilled person before that date. Indeed, the EBA have affirmed, by being placed on the market, a produ...

Overview and Strategic Context The UKIPO’s 2025 consultation on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs), announced on 15 July 2025, signals a potential policy shift in how the UK approaches SEP licensing and dispute resolution. The proposals seek to position the UK as a procedurally distinct and implementer-friendly jurisdiction - particularly at a time when enforcement dynamics across Europe and Asia are shifting. The UK plays a significant global role in FRAND jurisprudence having helped defin...

G1/24, described as one of the most important cases in decades, relates to how claims of patents are to be interpreted by the Boards of Appeal and, by extension, all organs of the European Patent Office. The referral to the Enlarged Board came from a decision of Technical Board of Appeal 3.2.01 which identified diverging strands of case law concerning claim interpretation. A first strand suggests that the Claims should be interpreted in isolation and the description should only be consulted to ...

In February 2022 two questions were referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO (EBoA) regarding entitlement to priority. The first question asks whether the EPO has jurisdiction to decide whether a priority right has been validly transferred.  The second question examines whether the priority claim for the European designation of a PCT application can be deemed to be valid if the PCT application was only filed in the same name as the priority application for the US designation and not f...

Since the UK's departure from the EU Trade Mark and Design System (EU IPO) at the end of 2020, non-UK Attorneys have been allowed to act as representatives for these cloned UK registrations. However, this is due to end after three years, on the 31st of December 2023. This deadline brings a strong risk that UK registrations could be lost without UK-based representation especially if challenged, e.g. for non-use or invalidity. Alarmingly, there are currently over 200,000 UK-cloned registratio...