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The Administrative Council of the EPO has announced major changes to the system of excess claims fees for European patent applications.  Click here to see our briefing note on this subject.

The new version of the European Patent Convention, known as EPC 2000, duly entered into force on 13 December 2007.  We have previously reported on some of the most significant new features of the new Convention, but to revisit our notes on the following subjects, please click on the links below:

Use-limited product protection for pharmaceuticals

Post-grant central limitation procedure for European patents

Less welcome is the news that the London Agreement, the effect of which would be to reduce the cost of the grant and validation procedure for European patents is not as close to implementation as had been hoped (see, for instance, our September 2007 newsletter).  The Agreement will come into force once it has been ratified by France and France's instrument of accession has been deposited with the German government.  Contrary to widely-circulated reports in late 2007, it now appears that these steps have not yet been taken, and so there is no immediate prospect of the London Agreement becoming effective.  We regret this delay, which we consider to be to the detriment of all applicants for patents in Europe.

Norway and Croatia became contracting states of the European Patent Organisation on 1 January 2008, and may be designated in European patent applications (and, via the EPO, in PCT applications designating the EPO) filed on or after that date.

The total number of EPO contracting states is now 34.