Posts Tagged ‘title’

On June 9, 2010, the UK Court of Appeal successfully avoided ruling on a 2009 decision by the England and Wales High Court (Patent Court) confirming the decision of the Board of Appeals of the EPO in case No. T 0788/05[1] which held that priority can only be claimed by the identical applicant(s) of the relevant earlier application or his valid successor in title[2].

One of the popular misconceptions that I run into when I train people, is the belief that the assignment from a parent application does not need to be filed against its child continuation or divisional applications.The problem here is that there is a disconnect between the words “owner” and “title.” The word “owner” refers to a legal right of possession and the word “title” refers to the instrument that constitutes the evidence of such legal right, which is located in the ownership registry of the applicable jurisdiction in which the patent is registered.