The practice of Intellectual property law prosecution serves two purposes: [1] investigating and processing patent, trademark or copyright claims so as to establish or expand a client’s ownership rights to those claim(s), and [2] protecting clients from theft or infringement of the patent, trademark or copyright claims they already own. Structured to accommodate the world’s creative minds and technical geniuses, IP is the most comprehensive and complicated form of law practice in existence. Its success is based on deadlines and precision, the levels of which can directly affect businesses and the livelihoods they sustain… even entire economies.

EPO: European Patent Office
EPC: European Patent Convention
EU: European Union
Annuity: Annual fee required by many foreign patent offices to be paid to keep the patent application or grant pending.
Maintenance fee: Fee paid to the USPTO to keep a granted patent alive. The fee is due by the 4th, 8th and 12th anniversary of the issue date.
Renewal: Use this term when you are speaking about both foreign annuities and US maintenance fees.

When a patent application is filed under the EPC, the application is referred to as an EP application.

When the person, name, address or citizenship of an applicant, applicant/inventor, inventor or agent changes during the prosecution of a PCT application, the Request to Correct the information should be filed directly with the International Bureau and not the US Receiving Office.

PCT Rule 92bis, includes the following language: “The International Bureau shall, on the request of the applicant or the receiving Office, record changes…”