Vicki Allen

May 16, 2024 | mondaq.com | Vicki Allen |Marc Wilkinson |Graham Lewis

Broadcast date: 2 May 2024 — Speakers: Vicki Allen, Marc Wilkinson, Graham Lewis The European Patent Office (EPO) applies the same basic patentability criteria to antibodies as to other inventions. However, the high volume of applications in this area means that examiners have developed standardised approaches to assessing "antibody-specific" issues and these have been formalised in a dedicated section of the EPO's Guidelines for Examination.

May 8, 2024 | mondaq.com | Graham Lewis |Vicki Allen |Dan G. Hilton

Last year we provided a review of 19 EPO Board of Appeal decisions relating to "antibody inventions" that were published between January and December 2022. We have now reviewed the decisions published in 2023. Before discussing these decisions, we should first briefly mention G 2/21, which is a decision by the Enlarged Board of Appeal published in March 2023. G 2/21 considered whether post-published evidence could be used to prove the existence of a technical effect when assessing inventive step.

Apr 22, 2024 | lexology.com | Graham Lewis |Vicki Allen

Over recent years, antibodies have become increasingly important as therapeutic drugs and large numbers of patent applications are filed in this area (>1000 granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) in 2019). Whilst patentability is assessed in the same way as for any other invention, the high volume of cases means that examiners have developed standardised approaches to assessing “antibody-specific” issues.

Apr 22, 2024 | lexology.com | Vicki Allen |Patrick Campbell |Graham Lewis

The European Patent Office (EPO) applies the same basic patentability criteria to antibodies as to other inventions. However, the high volume of applications in this area means that examiners have developed standardised approaches to assessing “antibody-specific” issues and these have been formalised in a dedicated section of the EPO’s Guidelines for Examination (G, 11, 6).

Oct 11, 2023 | mondaq.com | Lucy M. Barnes |Joseph Simon-Brown |James Cracknell |Vicki Allen

A patent is a legal monopoly granted by a government in return for public disclosure of an invention. A granted patent gives the proprietor the right to prevent others using the invention in the territory to which the patent applies. A patent does not, however, give a positive right to use an invention. There may be earlier patents for other inventions that an inventor may need to license to exploit his own invention.