News Archive
2011-06-23
Faster prosecution regarding pct-applications, national phases, agreement between Sweden, U.S. and Japan
The Intellectual Property Offices in Sweden, U.S. and Japan made an agreement called the ''Patent Prosecution Highway – Patent Cooperation Treaty'' (PPH-PCT). This agreement will make the time of prosecuting the PCT-applications faster and the national phases in U.S. and Japan faster.
This agreement will also make the prosecution more efficient, which will favour you as a customer at Bergenstråhle & Lindvall. If you would like to hand in a PCT-application at for instance the Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV) and then you would like to continue with a national application in U.S. and/or Japan. You will be informed much faster whether the patent was granted or not compared to how the patent system has been before.
Regarding the agreement between Sweden and U.S., called the PCT-PPH pilot program, there is a trial period which started the 1st of June 2011 and will expire on the 31st of May 2013.
2011-06-20
Improve your chances to obtain a patent
We have always thought so, but now it is statistically proven. Turning to a professional patent attorney significantly improves your chances to obtain a patent. Recent statistics from the Swedish Patent and Registrations office (SPRO, aka PRV) show that a patent is granted in 49 % of the applications where the application is drafted and prosecuted by a professional patent attorney. In cases where the applicant acts without professional help, the success rate is only 17 %.
Drafting a patent application requires both skill and experience. We believe however that we can help you with much more than drafting and prosecuting your applications. If you turn to Bergenstråhle & Lindvall, we start by analyzing the business aspects of your invention. If the time is not right for filing an application, we tell you so. We do not hesitate to send the inventor back to the laboratory in case we see that the invention is insufficiently substantiated. Risking a guess, we would say that our success rate is significantly above 50 %.
We also frequently advice our clients to consider other forms of registered and unregistered protection. Ultimately, intellectual property rights are business tools, so you should consider the business aspects from day one.
Martin Holmberg
2010-12-02
Susanne Roos is our new employee at Bergenstråhle & Lindvall
We would like to welcome Susanne Roos to our company Bergenstråhle & Lindvall. Susanne has now been at the company for one month. Before she was employed within the pharmacy industry at a company called Astra Zeneca. Here she worked for 8 years within Trademarks, Design, Copyright, Legal & Litigation, Regulatory questions and other related questions within the area of IP.
Susanne holds a law degree from Uppsala University.
An earlier employment was at Ericsson where she was working for 10 years at the Legal Department. Ericsson is one of Sweden’s most IP-focused industry companies.
2010-09-20
New Standard for Monetary Brand Valuation (ISO/DIS 10668)
Intangible assets, not least brands, are increasingly recognized as highly valuable properties. Consequently, brand valuation becomes more important and can be used for a number of purposes, like marketing strategy, fundraising, litigation, and licensing. There are many different valuation methods in use today, most of which value brands primarily from a behavioral- (market) or financial perspective. Such methods are incomplete in order to establish the total value of a brand and may generate huge differences in valuation results.
To raise the quality level of valuations and make them more consistent and reliable, expert groups from different countries worldwide have been working since 2007 on an international ISO standard for monetary brand valuation. The new standard ISO 10668 was published in August 2010. The main contribution of the standard is that it requires analysis of behavioral, financial as well as legal aspects. It also lay down fundamental general requirements, for example that valuations shall be objective, based on valid and relevant inputs, and not least that they shall be transparent, making occurring “black-box” methods less important.
Bergenstråhle & Lindvall participated in Sweden’s expert group during the whole work with the standard, as the sole member representing law firms/IP firms. The Swedish group was also one of the most active and influential in the work with ISO 10668. As a result of the committee work, Bergenstråhle & Lindvall has already been involved in authentic valuations based on the requirements of the new standard.
For more information on ISO 10668 and/or our brand valuation services, do not hesitate to contact Jesper Sellin by sending him an e-mail: j esper.sellin@bergenstrahle.se .
2010-09-13
An new law concerning authorization of Swedish patent attorneys
An new law concerning an official authorization of Swedish patent attorneys came into force on September 1, 2010. The law stipulates requirements (secrecy, integrity) and gives privileges (client-attorney privilege). A new governmental authority, the Board of Patent Attorneys, has been established and will be responsible for the qualification of Swedish patent attorneys. Per Bjerndell from Bergenstråhle & Lindvall is one of the five board members.
Under this law, patent attorneys are able to apply for authorization at the Board of Patent Attorneys. It is not compulsory to apply for this authorization since one is allowed to operate as a patent attorney even without this authorization. The authorization however introduces the client-attorney privilege for Swedish patent attorneys, i.e. gives a patent attorney the exclusive right to refuse to witness in court regarding confidential client information, namely legal patent-related matters. Attorneys who are only engaged in trademark matters may not be authorized. The new law is important for Swedish patent attorneys who may be summoned as witnesses in patent litigation in Sweden or abroad, especially in the United States. With the new law, a Swedish patent attorney will be on a more equal footing with German, British and American colleagues.
A patent attorney must pass a knowledge test to be authorized by the Board of Patent Attorneys. Everyone who has been authorized will be under the supervision of the Board. Furthermore, the Board has an obligation to revoke the authorization if a person violates confidentiality or otherwise fails to meet the requirements of the law.
2010-08-10
The Patent System is vital in the debate on climate change
The President of EPO Benoît Battistelli has been on a conference in the middle of July regarding climate change and green technologies. The conference was organized by the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA). During the conference Mr Battistelli said, “The patent system has a key role to play in the debate on climate change by providing objective data and evidence”. Furthermore he said, "Patents play an important role for climate change technologies, just as they do in all other technical fields - they provide incentives, first to create new products and processes and then to distribute them as widely as possible".
He talked about a study that had been done by the Office together with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) on the role of patents in the transfer of climate change mitigation technologies.
EPO has developed a new classification scheme for clean energy technologies and reclassified its entire world wide database. "Apart from being easily accessible to and understandable by non-experts, this new information tool will always be kept up to date and accurate. Embedding it in the EPO's classification scheme ensures that the collective intelligence of 4 000 patent examiners and classification experts maintains and improves it automatically on a daily basis," Mr Battistelli said.
2010-06-14
INTA - a place to meet clients and global partners
Our INTA Reception this year was a pleasant evening in a summery Boston. It is the sixth in a row that we have arranged a Reception for our colleagues and clients all around the world and which include in our world wide network. The Reception was held in the trendy and fashionable bar the District, in the middle of Financial District, was an excellent opportunity to meet with new and old friends and colleagues from all over the world. The event was highly appreciated and longed for by all of us. In our view our Reception this year was our best so far!
2010-03-04
New President of the EPO
There has been a process to elect the President of the EPO. Recently, it was finished and a Frenchman Mr. Benoît Battistelli was chosen. He will get admittance to the position the 1st of July 2010 and the term is five years at a time.
2009-10-13
Bergenstråhle & Lindvall launch new home page
The last three years Bergenstråhle & Lindvall have focused on broadening our total competence and experience. Together with selected customers we have developed new types of partnerships and new services that meet identified needs and create substantial value for our customers.
When we now launch our new home page we present these new services for the first time.
Welcome to meet a new Bergenstråhle & Lindvall.