Full Description
A User's Guide to Patents, Fifth Edition provides guidance on the areas of European and UK patent law and procedure that are most important in day-to-day practice.
This new edition sets out how patents can be obtained, exploited and enforced and addresses wider public policy aspects of patents and their economic significance, as well as past and likely future trends that affect legal practitioners. It is essential reading for IP practitioners, solicitors and barristers, patent attorneys, in-house lawyers, management executives and inventors.
Unique selling points:
Explains how patents can be exploited and enforced by reference to the most recent UK and EPO case law
Identifies and discusses the different patent law issues that can arise in specific industrial sectors
Full tabulation of all English patent validity and infringement decisions given after full trial since 1997
Addresses wider public policy aspects of patents and their economic significance, as well as past and likely future trends in the field, both in Europe and internationally
The following relevant developments are included:
The new UK law as to infringement by equivalents following Actavis v Lilly (UKSC 2017)
The degree to which new types of plant, produced by using certain modern biotechnological techniques, can be patented in the light of the exclusion for 'products obtained by essentially biological processes' and the ongoing controversy as to this between the EPO, the EPO Boards of Appeal and the EU
The developing case law in the UK and the EPO on plausibility in the context of insufficiency and obviousness
The Unjustified Threats Act 2017 and other procedural developments, such as those involving Arrow type declarations of obviousness
Developments in standards related patent litigation, as in Unwired Planet v Huawei (Patents Court 2017, CA 2018)
This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's Intellectual Property and IT online service.
Contents
Part I Patents generally
Chapter 1 Introduction to the patent system
Chapter 2 Applying for and securing the grant of a patent
Chapter 3 Transactions with patents and with patent applications
Chapter 4 Procedures in disputes concerning patents
Chapter 5 Patent validity - substantive law
Chapter 6 Patent infringement - substantive law and remedies
Part II Patents in specific areas of technology
Chapter 7 Patents for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and agrochemicals
Chapter 8 Biotechnology patents
Chapter 9 Patents in electronics, communications, and computing
Part III Appendices
Appendix 1 Adherence to International Patent Treaties (including latest version acceded to, or the accession date)
Appendix 2 Patents Court judgments on validity and infringement since 1997
Appendix 3 Court of Appeal judgments on validity and infringement since 1997
Appendix 4 Further reading
Appendix 5 Patent resources on the Internet
Appendix 6 Legislative materials
