EPO assesses plan for patent grace period

The European Patent Office has commissioned an analysis on the introduction of a patent grace period, which would allow academics to publish articles before filing a patent application.

Under the European Patent Convention, European inventors are protected against other people disclosing information about their inventions for a 6-months period before the date at which they file an application. However, the present rules leave them vulnerable to their own disclosures—meaning academics are held back from publishing research that could be used by others to copy their invention.

The European Patent Office has been considering expanding the grace period to cover inventors themselves since November 2012. In a report published this month, the EPO’s Economic and Scientific Advisory Board concludes that the extension of the six-month grace period to cover inventors should be considered, because of the benefits it would grant to academic researchers.