At the present time, the average duration of the examination procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO) is 23.2 months1. The examination time period should be reduced to 12 months by 20202. The decreasing duration of the examination procedure comes under criticisms from some applicants. According to its detractors, the faster procedure would prevent applicants from raising funds or submitting complementary data during the examination phase. The EPO acknowledged those observations and suggested to […]

In today’s world, unless you are living in the middle of the Sahara Desert or somewhere equally remote, it is impossible to avoid trade marks. For most of us, whether we realise it or not, exposure to trade marks is pretty much continual from the moment we get up in the morning to the moment we go to bed.

So what do I mean by ‘trade mark’? In a nutshell, a trade mark is any […]