EPO UPDATE:
Substantial increases in claims fees and renewal fees for European patent applications came into force on 01 April 2008 (CA/D 15/07).
Under the new fee structure an excess claim fee of 200 Euros is now payable for each additional claim over 15 claims in an application. Accordingly as of 01 April 2008 an application with 20 claims will now invite claims fees of 1000 Euros, compared to 450 Euros under the previous fee structure. This increase in claims fees clearly represents a substantial increase in the official fees payable to the EPO for applications having large numbers of claims.

Renewal fees have also increased substantially; over 20% on average, with the 5th year renewal fee rising by a staggering 56%, and the fee for the 10th and subsequent years rising by 27%. Additionally the penalty fee for late payment of renewal fees has been raised from 10% of the fees due to 50%.

For further information see:
http://www.epo.org/patents/law/legal-texts/decisions/archive/14122007.html

USPTO Update: Claims and Continuations rules overruled.  On 01 April 2008 the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia handed down its decision in respect of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s challenge of the USPTO’s proposed Claims and Continuations Rules, due to come into force in November 2007 (see our August 2007 news article for details of the proposed rule changes).

Following the Preliminary Injunction obtained by GSK on 31 October 2007, enjoining the USPTO from implementing the rule changes, the District Court has now held the USPTO’s proposed Claims and Continuations Rules to be “null and void” as in excess of statutory authority because they are substantive rather than procedural in nature, and exceed the agency’s rule-making authority.

It is not yet clear whether the USPTO plan to appeal to the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit (CAFC).