Patent Law & Practice at a Glance – June 2025

UKIPO update

Consultation outcome: UK’s future exhaustion of IP rights

The outcome of a public consultation regarding the UK’s exhaustion of IP rights regime has been published. The existing UK+ exhaustion regime put in place in January 2021 will be maintained, meaning that relevant IP rights in goods are exhausted in the UK when a good is placed on the market in either the UK or the European Economic Area. As the existing regime is being maintained, this means that businesses should not need to make any practical changes when parallel importing goods into the UK.

The full report of the consultation outcome can be read here.

UKIPO guidance on exhaustion of IP rights and parallel trade has also been updated following this outcome and can be read here.

Filing statistics

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

Customer service standards

The latest update on how the UKIPO is doing relative to the targets it has set itself can be found here.

EPO update

Impact of the power outages of 28 April 2025 in Spain, Portugal, Andorra and parts of France

In the case of parties that reside in France, Portugal and Spain or that have appointed representatives with their place of business in France, Portugal and Spain, time limits which expired in the period from 28 April to 29 April were extended to 30 April 2025 pursuant to Rule 134(2) and (3) EPC.

As for time limits and conditions applicable under the PCT, pursuant to Rule 82quater.1 PCT, applicants must take the relevant actions as soon as reasonably possible and submit a request for excuse of the delay no later than six months after the expiration of the applicable time limit. Pursuant to Rule 82quater.1 (d) PCT, the EPO waives the need to provide evidence in relation to any requests under Rule 82quater.1 PCT related to these power outages.

More details available here.

PCT update

PATENTSCOPE

Details of useful features available in WIPO’s global patent database PATENTSCOPE can be found here (page 1). For example, a PCT monitoring feature provides an easy method for monitoring published PCT applications without the need to perform repeated manual searches. Users can track up to 20 applications simultaneously. Please see the PATENTSCOPE User’s Guide for further details.

New WIPO resources: Patent Landscape Report – Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Technologies

The latest WIPO Patent Landscape Report offers an overview of global patenting activity in the OHS technology field. Through analysis of patent filings, the report identifies key innovation trends, technology developers, and geographical patterns in OHS-related innovation. Please see here (page 4) for further details. The full report can be found on the WIPO website.

New/updated PCT resources: new ePCT video tutorials

The ePCT video tutorials resource for applicants has been expanded to include a video tutorial for ePCT-filing. Please see here (page 5) for further details.

New/updated PCT resources: new webinar recordings

A recording of the Mastering ePCT webinar series: ePCT Filing in English and supporting documents are now available.

Practical advice: possible safeguards in case of electricity and internet outage

The following question is answered: I need to submit a new PCT application today and file several documents relating to pending PCT applications at both my local receiving Office and other Offices. There are, on occasion, electricity and Internet outages in the area where my firm, as well as the local receiving Office, are located. What can I do in such circumstances? I need a plan B in case I am not able to timely submit the documents in question. Please see here (pages 5 to 7) for the detailed answer.

Other useful links

The PCT seminar, webinar and event calendar can be found here (page 8).

The PCT fee tables (as of 1 May 2025) can be found here (pages 9 to 17).

A list of PCT Contracting States and Two-Letter Country Codes (as of 1 May 2025) can be found here (page 18).