14 April 2016, 3 pm
After the tea break, we have a talk about the UPC, from a barrister. The barrister is convinced that the UPC will be a fabulous tribunal and wonders why anyone would ever want to opt out. She has possibly not heard the rumours about the training of new UPC judges, which by all accounts begins with a module on “What is a patent?” and culminates in “What is a court?”, with some intermediate lectures on what I believe they call “Judgecraft”. Some of us are concerned that the Hogwarts School for Muggles Who Fancy a Bit of Light Judging might not be the complete solution to the problem here, which is that the courts of some EU countries have never seen a patent. The barrister also implies that Monsieur Le Battistelli was wrong about a Brexit scuppering the UPC. If there is a Brexit, she says, our government will still want there to be a pan-EU patent system, because a pan-EU patent system is a Good Thing. I wish I shared her confidence that our government can recognise a Good Thing when it comes to the IP context, or indeed that the pursuit of Good Things is one of its priorities. But I confess I had not previously thought of this possibility: that we might ratify the UPC, then leave the EU anyway, and subsequently do the IP law equivalent of standing at the edge of the pitch hurling abuse at the linesmen. Our final talk is an IPO update from a senior patent examiner. Amongst other things, she tackles the thorny subject of examiner-attorney relations. She tells us lots of helpful things we could do to make examiners happy, like, only claiming what you’ve actually invented, and only claiming it once, and claiming it in plain English. Oh, and not writing fractious and pompous letters in reply to exam reports. We agree that these are eminently sensible suggestions, apart from the one about fractious and pompous letters, which is outrageous. Unfortunately, we explain, the situation is often beyond our control. Examiner-attorney relations would be excellent were it not for the intervention of clients. Because just when the attorney and the examiner are starting to get along nicely, and have agreed what to do with the claims so as to make both their lives bearable again, the client will step in with some darned inconvenient request, and suddenly there you are writing another fractious and pompous letter. Still, everyone agrees that it is nice of the IPO to talk to us about these things. And that it would be even nicer if the EPO could do the same.
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