Decision Nº O/016/08 from Intellectual Property Office - (Patent decisions), 22 January 2008
| Judge | Dr J E Porter |
| Court | Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom) |
| Administrative Decision Number | O/016/08 |
| Patent Number | PCT/CA2003/01993 |
| Date | 22 January 2008 |
| Parties | Research In Motion Ltd |
BL O/016/08
22 January 2008
APPLICANT Research In Motion Limited
ISSUE Whether a request for reinstatement
under section 20A for international
patent application number
PCT/CA2003/01993 should be allowed
HEARING OFFICER
J E Porter
DECISION
Introduction
1 International patent application number PCT/CA2003/01993 was filed on 18
December 2003 in the name of Research In Motion Limited (“RIM”), claiming
priority from a US application filed on 8 December 2003. At that time, the PCT
Regulations required the applicant to designate specifically, by marking check
boxes on the PCT Request Form, those national States or regional Offices for
which they wished to enter the various national or regional phases.
2 For the present application all check boxes relating to national States were
marked but none of the boxes relating to regional patents were marked, in
particular that relating to the European Patent Office (“the EPO”).
3 The 31 month period for entering either the EP regional phase or the UK national
phase expired on 8 July 2006. No request was made to enter the UK national
phase, with the result that the international application for a patent (UK) was
taken to be withdrawn. PCT Form 1010 requesting entry to the EP regional
phase was filed by RIM’s Munich-based European patent attorney on 3 July
2006. The EPO initially assigned the application an EP application number but
subsequently noticed that the EP regional phase had not been designated on the
international application and therefore deemed all procedural steps which had
been taken to enter the EP regional phase as null and void.
4 The EPO sent two communications to RIM’s European attorney conveying this
information, the first dated 1 March 2007 and the second dated 26 April 2007.
The European attorney claims not to have received the first communication but
UK Intellectual Property Office is an operating name of the Patent Office
To continue reading
Request your trial