A Collection of IP Reports: Patent Box, Second Medical Use Claims and Patent Attorney Negligence

We come across many IP reports, articles and decisions which are of interest in trying to keep up to date, but which we can’t devote entire posts to. Here’s a bundle of them:

1. An OECD/G20 report ‘Countering Harmful Tax Practices More Effectively, Taking into Account Transparency and Substance’ which comments on Patent Box and generally approves of the way the UK is doing it. See the report here. See IP Finance discussing it here.

2. AIPPI’s Working Committee Q238 report on ‘Second Medical Use Claims and Other Medical Indication Claims’ which provides a background on claim formats to protection medical inventions and the approach which different territories take to enforcement. See the report here. See IPKat’s discussion of it here.

3. Baillie v Spencer [2014] EWHC 2149 (Ch), a UK High Court case where a patent attorney was accused of professional negligence. The patent attorney was ultimately found to not be negligent, but there were clearly instances where he was too optimistic about the protection that could be gained and he offered advice on commercial matters that he should not have done. See the decision here. See Solo IP discuss it here.

4. The WIPO Journal (see here). We found the first article of Volume 5 Issue 1 on the development of the Chinese patent system very interesting (see here).