UK Patent Office Amends Patentability Checks

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

10 August 2005

Following the delivery by the High Court last month of two verdicts which supported the approach to patentability taken by the European Patent Office (EPO), the UK Patent Office has announced that it will be changing the way in which its examiners check patent applications for patentability.

According to the Patent Office, under the new regime, patent examiners will look at all of the requirements for patentability together instead of merely applying the "technical contribution" test.

This will effectively mean identifying what is the advance in the art that is said to be new and not obvious (and susceptible of industrial application), and determining whether it is both new and not obvious (and susceptible of industrial application) under the description of an "invention" in the sense of Article 52 of the European Patent Convention.

The changes are designed to being the UK into line with the majority of its European counterparts on this issue. However, the new approach is not expected to affect the scope of what is patentable.

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