The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published its response to its consultation on legislative changes needed to accommodate AI, stating that it has accepted the need to create a new data mining exception for copyright and database rights and that this will make it easier to analyse material for machine learning, research and innovation. The exception will apply to text and data mining for any purpose, although rights holders will still have safeguards to protect their content, including a requirement for lawful access. The Government’s decided not to introduce changes to the UK’s patent inventorship criteria or copyright computer generated works provisions at this time, although the law will be kept under review. Read more

The Irish Government has reaffirmed its commitment to participate in the UPC, issuing a statement earlier this week (28 June 2022). However Ireland requires a public referendum to confirm that it should ratify the UPC Agreement and uncertainty about the timing of this looks likely to mean that Ireland will not be one of the states forming part of the UPC system on Day 1, given that recent announcements place the start date for the UPC in early 2023. Read more

The China State Administration for Market Regulation has published a Regulation on Prohibition for Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights to Exclude or Restrict Competition (Draft for Comment), which is now open to the public for comments.  The Regulation reflects the latest approach of the China authorities to the relationship between competition law and intellectual property enforcement, which has been a topic of concern for a long time, and includes clarification on scenarios that will be deemed abuses of market dominance in relation to SEP licensing. Read more

We are delighted that our overviews of regulatory and competition law in the EU and South Africa have now been published as jurisdictional contributions to the Lexology Getting the Deal Through Pharmaceutical Antitrust guide. The online publication serves as a quick reference guide enabling side-by-side comparison of local insights into pharmaceutical regulatory law (framework, authorities, … Read more

Laura Orlando's comments on reaching agreement on who has the right to seek or request opt-out or opt-in in relation to European patents and the up-coming UPC jurisdiction over them have been quoted by Managing Intellectual Property in an article of 16 June 2022: UPC special focus: Review licensing deals to avoid heartbreak, counsel warn. Read more

The Director of the US Patent and Trade Mark Office, Kathi Vidal, has described how important the US system of patent protection is to the development of a clean-energy future in an address to the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit (see the full address here). Ms Vidal wants the patent system to “power the new technologies … Read more

Laura Orlando and Rachel Montagnon have contributed to an article to BioSciences Law Review on the plans for "unitary" SPCs which can be read here Laura is quoted in the article: The variations in approach to grant seen across the EU mean that ... Read more

At the launch of the World Meteorological Organisation’s State of the Global Climate 2021 Report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said that renewable energy technologies, such as battery storage, should be treated as essential and freely-available global public goods. Mr Guterres noted that “removing obstacles to knowledge sharing and technological transfer – including intellectual property … Read more