Patent Law & Practice at a Glance – August 2025

UKIPO update

Emotional Perception

The UK Supreme Court heard the case of Emotional Perception AI Limited v Comptroller General of Patents on 21 and 22 July. The case addresses the question of whether a trained artificial neural network falls under the statutory exclusion of “computer programs as such” from patentability, with the applicant Emotional Perception AI Limited arguing that it is not and the Comptroller General of Patents (i.e. the UK Intellectual Property Office) being of the opposing view. We now await the court’s judgement, which is expected to have ramifications for how computer-related inventions are dealt with in the UK in future. Mason Birch reported on the arguments that were made by both parties here.

UK and Singapore to continue IP cooperation

The UK and Singapore IP offices have signed a new memorandum of understanding, which “makes formal provision for both offices to engage in a wide range of cooperative activities”.  Examples given include “IP awareness activities, such as conferences and seminars, the sharing of information around developments in relevant law, policies, and regulations, and provisions for the sharing of best practices across many other areas”.

UK-China IP

The UKIPO publishes a newsletter targeted at UK stakeholders to provide updates on developments in Chinese IP. The latest edition of this newsletter can be found here. 

Monthly filing statistics: Patents, trade marks and designs

The statistics for July 2025 are now available here.  Statistics for previous months can be found here.

Customer service standards

The latest update on how the UKIPO are doing relative to the targets they have set themselves can be found here.

EPO update

Montenegro accedes to the London Agreement

On 9 April 2025, Montenegro deposited its instrument of accession to the London Agreement and the agreement entered into force on 1 August 2025. As of 1 August 2025, no Montenegrin language translation of the European patent specification need be supplied if the patent is granted in English or if an English translation of the patent is supplied in accordance with Article 65(1) EPC. However, a Montenegrin language translation of the claims must always be supplied.

More details available here.

Changes to the registration of general authorisations

With a view to simplifying its administrative and procedural processes, the EPO is changing its practice on registering general authorisations. As of 1 December 2025, it will only register those issued for employees of an entity that is a party to proceedings. This change will apply both to procedures relating to European patent applications and to procedures relating to European patents with unitary effect.

The logic for the change is that professional representatives, legal practitioners and associations are exempt in general from filing an authorisation, and may be required to do so in exceptional circumstances only.

However, the EPO will continue to register and update general authorisations issued for employees acting for a party under Article 133(3) EPC, since authorisations will still be required for employees acting as representatives under this provision.

In order to make the process more streamlined and user-friendly, it will be possible in future to register and manage general authorisations issued for employees via the EPO’s web-based service MyEPO.

More details available here, here, and here.

Associations of representatives now open to legal practitioners

As of 8 July 2025, it is now possible for legal practitioners to join and create associations registered with the EPO, either together with professional representatives or on their own. Until recently, legal practitioners could not be members of an association as this conflicted with their obligation to file an authorisation. The lifting of this obligation on 1 November 2024 has made this change possible.

More details available here.

Presentation of the application and other documents

The EPO has published updated requirements for the presentation of the application and other documents which reflect that most documents are now filed digitally. One notable change is that when filed by means of electronic communication, drawings may be executed in colour or in greyscale, in durable, uniformly thick and well-defined lines, strokes or areas. They must, however, be sufficiently rich in contrast and suitable to be clearly displayed at a resolution of 300 dpi.

Update to the DOCX definition for filing with the European Patent Office

The Online Filing 2.0 pilot project on DOCX filing has been running since 4 May 2020. Until now, application documents filed as part of this pilot could be in DOCX OOXML and only had to be filed as a single document comprising all elements of the application (description, claims, abstract, any drawings).

Following feedback from pilot participants, the definition of “DOCX” applicable for the purposes of the Online Filing 2.0 project is now being expanded to allow drawings to be uploaded and filed as a separate document in PDF. Any drawings in PDF must comply with Annex F to the Administrative Instructions under the PCT. As of 1 October 2025, they may be in black and white, colour or greyscale.

Drawings may still be filed in DOCX in the single file making up the application document, in black and white or, as of 1 October 2025, in colour or greyscale.

More details available here and here.

Decommissioning of EPO Online Filing (OLF)

The EPO’s filing service EPO Online Filing (OLF) will be decommissioned with effect from 1 January 2026, after which time submissions may be filed via Online Filing 2.0, with the further possibility to file certain types of submission via MyEPO and the EPO Contingency Upload Service providing an alternative means of submitting documents in urgent cases.

More details available here and here.

Reduction of the fees for the international search and the international preliminary examination

By a decision of 12 December 2019, the fees for the international search and the international preliminary examination carried out on international applications filed by nationals of certain states have been reduced. The EPO periodically updates the countries for which these reductions apply and, as of 1 July, Namibia has been added to the list and Cape Verde and Samoa have been removed from the list. The full list of countries for which fee reductions applies is available here.

Continuation of proceedings in view of referral G 1/25

Referral G 1/25 is pending before the Enlarged Board of Appeal, with the referring Board in decision T 697/22 seeking to clarify questions relating to the adaptation of the description for consistency with the claims. To ensure proper functioning of the EPO and for legal certainty, the President of the EPO has decided that proceedings before the examining and opposition divisions should continue.

More details available here.