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EU Legislation, Initiatives, etc.
IPO: Intellectual Property and Quality Minister Lord Triesman has welcomed the European Patent Convention 2000 (EPC 2000) changes that ensure consistency between UK and European patent law, which came into force last week.
This revision includes changes to post grant amendment of patents which will allow UK business more options & flexibility when amending patents, giving greater choice in disputes over patent rights. The law has also been clarified & updated for inventions relating to methods of treatment or diagnosis.
In addition rules on the effect of European patent applications on the novelty of other inventions are simplified. Any published European patent application may now be used to show that an invention is not new, giving a Europe wide uniform effect of European patents on novelty of invention.
