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Institute of Professional Representatives before the European Patent Office

News Policy

Policy for news items on the epi website

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Webinars: Collaboration with overseas patent colleagues

November 10, 2022

epi continues with this successful webinar series focusing this time on Australia & New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa. The webinars are free of charge for epi members and epi students.

16 November 2022 : Australia and New Zealand

There are many reasons why Australia and New Zealand are commercially attractive destinations for protecting intellectual property. Of significance, are the stability and similarities of the legal systems in both countries. In recent years, patent laws in both Australia and New Zealand have evolved and increasingly aligned with patent laws in jurisdictions such as Europe and the US. There are, nevertheless, notable differences. The expert Dr Chris Vindurampulle, a patent and trade mark attorney at Pearce IP, provides an overview of the patent systems in Australia and New Zealand, highlighting differences and including best-practice recommendations.

7 December 2022: Mexico

Mexico has a new IP Law from November 5, 2020. The new Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property (FLPIP) specifies in detail which subject matter is not patentable, which will help resolve controversies that usually arise during the in-depth examination process. Additionally, a Complementary Certificate has been included in the FLPIP, which could grant an extension of up to five years on the term of patents for cases in which the procedure for granting a patent exceeds 5 years from the filing date, if this is directly attributable to the Institute due to unreasonable delays. Although science and technology advance faster than the reforms to the legal framework, this new Mexican IP Law has been a huge improvement and it will give certainty and confidence to applicants and inventors who want to protect their inventions in Mexico.
This session is held by two experts from Uhthoff, Gomez Vega & Uhthoff, S.C. Janett Lumbreras is experienced in patent matter, her practice areas are in Chemistry, Pharmacy, and Biotechnology. Dr. Manuel Lopez, is experienced in intellectual property matters, including patent drafting and PPH filing, novelty and patent landscape searching, FTO & clearance searching, infringement and validity advices in the areas of Mechanical and Electrical Inventions.

14 December 2022: South Africa

The expert Bastiaan Koster, an attorney, registered patent attorney and trade mark practitioner with more than 30 years’ experience in IP matters will focus in this webinar on the basic information patent attorneys in other jurisdictions should know about patent law in South Africa and two regional filing systems in Africa in order to advise their clients. The first regional system is ARIPO which provides for patent protection in 21 of the traditional English speaking African countries through a single application. The second is OAPI, a regional filing system covering 17 of the traditional French speaking countries in the north-west of Africa. In South Africa there is currently no substantive examination, although steps are being taken to introduce substantive examination. It is expected that this will happen within the next two years.

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