The Modern Law of Patents

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Description
Since the Third Edition of this book, a little over four years ago, the future has changed. Yet nearly two years after the referendum on leaving the European Union we still are unaware of what the future might be. While patent law will probably be less affected by the United Kingdom leaving the European Union than other areas of law or, indeed, intellectual property law, there are still a number of very significant questions outstanding. As we write, only a day after the publication of the Draft Withdrawal Agreement, it is still far from clear whether it will be accepted or amended; whether we will end with 'no deal', this deal or something else. So, as we write, the final outcome might become known within days, weeks or, if the Agreement is eventually ratified, years. When the book was written even the possibility of reaching a draft Agreement was uncertain and so we adopted the approach of simply stating the law as currently is with the United Kingdom firmly as a member of the EU. We did this for two reasons. First, there are so many variables that the speculation could have gone (and could still go) in many different and contradictory directions depending on the political weather. Second, and more importantly, we were bound to be wrong about what happens and we did not want to commit our mistakes to print when we might be found out so quickly. Nevertheless, in the day since the publication of the Draft Agreement we have made a few notes in the book of what it provides in relevant respects upon the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. We do not pretend to have fully taken it into account.
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Contents
Part 1  The Law of Patents
Chapter 1  Introduction to the law of patents
Chapter 2  Patentability
Chapter 3  Exclusion from Patentability
Chapter 4  Internal Requirements
Chapter 5  Priority
Chapter 6  Scope of Patent Claims
Chapter 7  Infringement
Chapter 8  Remedies
Part 2  Transactions, Licensing, Crown use and Entitlement
Chapter 9    Entitlement to the patent and employee compensation
Chapter 10  Ownership of, and transactions in, patents
Chapter 11  Licences of right , compulsory licences and Crown use
Part 3  Prosecution of Patent Applications
Chapter 12  Prosecution before the Intellectual Property Office
Chapter 13  Prosecution before the European Patent Office
Chapter 14   Prosecution under the Patent Cooperation Treaty
Part 4  Procedure, Hearings and Arbitration
Chapter 15  Proceedings before the patents Court and Intellectual property and Enterprise Court
Chapter 16  Proceedings before the Unified Patent Court
Chapter 17  Hearings and Oral proceedings before the Intellectual Property Office, appeals and
                     judicial review
Chapter 18  Hearings and oral proceedings before the European patent Office
Chapter 19  Jurisdiction of the English courts and enforcement of judgements
Chapter 20  Arbitration of patents disputes and applicable law
Part 5  Miscellaneous
Chapter 21   Patents and the law of competition
Chapter 22   Border controls
Chapter 23   Supplementary protection certificates
Chapter 24   Unjustified threats of infringement
Part 6  History and Theory
Chapter 25    Introduction to the history of patent law
Chapter 26    An introduction to patent law theory
Appendices
Precedents and Court Forms
Appendix 1    United Kingdom Patents Legislation
Appendix 2    European Patent Convention
Appendix 3    The Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court
Appendix 4    Supplementary Protection Certificates
Appendix 5    EU Law
Appendix 6    International Treaties
Index
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