More Important changes to EPO Rules from 1 April 2010 and 1 January 2011

The European Patent Office has published further changes to the Rules that will come into force on 1 April 2010.  The previously announced changes were mentioned in our news item here.  The further changes for April 2010 are relevant to PCT applications entering the European regional phase, and bring in restrictions to the search and examination procedure in cases where more than one inventive concept is present in the claims.  In light of these changes applicants would be well advised to review the claims put forward on European regional phase entry to make sure that the claims properly reflect the inventive concept of interest.  

In addition to these changes, the European Patent Office will introduce, from the start of 2011, a requirement for applicant's to provide the results of earlier relevant patent office searches to aid the European examination procedure.  The procedure is akin to the US 'Information Disclosure Statement' requirements.

More detailed information is given in this PDF leaflet and we would be happy to give you more detailed advice on the new Rules.