Important changes to European patent practice
As reported previously, on 1 April 2010 European law covering a number of practical aspects will be changing.
Potentially the most important change is the reduction, in most cases, of the time available in which to file a divisional application. There will, however, be a guaranteed grace period for filing divisional applications from pending European applications which runs until 1 October 2010. It is therefore worth considering a review of existing European patent applications in the near future to determine whether any divisional applications will be necessary, for example where a number of inventions are provided in the same application.
Other significant changes include a compulsion to file a substantive response to the written opinion accompanying the European search report, and a restriction on voluntary amendments, such that they must be filed with the mandatory response to the search report rather than up to the time of filing a response to the first examination report. These changes will therefore effectively transform the European search report into an exam report and so the overall effect should be that there is to be an acceleration of prosecution of EP applications, unless the European Patent Office begins to slow down the rate at which search reports are generated.
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