Provisional Program
How to Get a Patent:
A Comparison of European, National and PCT Routes
Comparison of the costs, type and duration of the examination procedure, and of the "quality" of the granted patent; future developments; filing strategies.
Overview of Intellectual Property Rights and Requirements for Patentability
Patent Law, Utility Model Law, Design Patent Law, Act on Employees’ Inventions, etc.; requirements for patentability under the EPC and the German Patent Law; overview of the case law.
Novelty, Inventive Step and Industrial Application
Definition of prior art; earlier European patent applications as prior art; possible effects of earlier national rights; inventive step and the "problem-solution-approach" by the EPO, special topics on various fields of technology, including biotechnological and pharmaceutical.
The Patenting of Biotechnology Inventions
A discussion of the EPO’s and GPTO’s practice in this key area of technology.
Essential Elements of the German and European Patent Application
Minimal requirements for establishing a priority date; recoverable acts and terms.
Form and Content of the Patent Application
The drafting of patent claims that are admissible in the German or European examination procedure; allowability of a single independent claim for each patent category and dependent claims with multiple back-references.
Granting Procedure at the European Patent Office
Procedure up to the publication of the application; formal examination; drawing up the European Search Report; action to be taken if the application is objected to for lack of unity of the invention; examination procedure; admissible amendments to the application before and during the examination procedure; filing of divisional applications.
Granting Procedure at the German Patent and Trademark Office
Examination on filing; if applicable, separate search procedure; examination procedure; voluntary divisional application or divisional application requested by the Patent Office; appeal procedure.
Exercises for the Drafting of Patent Claims for Chemistry, Mechanical/Electrical Engineering and Biotechnology
Computer-related inventions and a case from the field of biotechnology will be presented. Independently drafting a set of claims while elaborating the gist of the invention.
Separate Patent Prosecution Exercises for Chemistry, Mechanical / Electrical Engineering and Biotechnology
Preparing a reply to an Official Communication and drafting amended patent claims.
The Opposition Procedure Before the European Patent Office and the German Patent and Trademark Office
Formal and substantive legal requirements for an admissible opposition; grounds for opposition; sufficiency of notice of opposition; procedure in the case of an admissible opposition; successful strategies for the patentee and the opponent; late submissions and amendments; oral proceedings; decisions of the Opposition Division; appeals to the Boards of Appeal; costs.
Attending Oral Proceedings in an Opposition Case Before the European Patent Office Invalidation Proceedings
Formal and substantive requirements for a nullity action against a German patent or German part of a European patent before the German Federal Patent Court; appeal proceedings to the Supreme Court.
Infringement Proceedings
Warning letters; costs; risks and settlement; selection of venue and representation; preliminary injunctions and protective letters; exterritorial (cross-border) injunctions; counter-strategies (torpedoes); calculation of damages; scope of protection and claim interpretation (doctrine of equivalence); contributory patent infringement; European patent litigation proceedings; Community Patent.
Relationship Between Patent Rights and European Laws
Doctrine of Europe-wide exhaustion and free movement of goods and services in the EU. License agreements; permissible and non-permissible restrictions under German and European Antitrust Law.
