EPO enlarged board of appeal rules that non-reproducible commercial products are prior art when assessing novelty and inventive step. A product put on the market before the filing date of a European patent application cannot be excluded from the state of the art solely because its composition or internal structure could not be analysed and reproduced by the skilled person before that date. Technical information about a product made available to the public before the filing date forms part of the state of the art, irrespective of whether the skilled person could analyse and reproduce the product and its composition or internal structure before that date. EPO | IPKat
USPTO creates ‘settled expectations’ block to starting IPR proceedings and SAP challenges it. This allows discretionary denial of inter partes review (IPR) petitions for patents older than seven years. Patently’O | Jones Day | Patently’O (on SAP challenge)
European General Court denies application for colour trade mark registration – despite assistance from INTA and MARQUES. Yet again we see that it’s hard to get a non-traditional trade mark registration in the EU. IPKat | Arochi Linder
UK Supreme Court to hear appeal in Tesla Avanci 5G FRAND case. It’s been a while since the UK Supreme court has reviewed a FRAND case and Tesla is trying to make new law here with its supra-FRAND request to set a new global rate for the licence. (FRAND = Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory). IAM | UK Supreme Court | IP Fray
20,000 AI-generated music tracks are uploaded daily to platforms like Deezer, doubling in just two months. IP Close Up