The recent Gowers Review recommended, amongst other things, that the The UK Patent Office should pursue work sharing arrangements with Japan to reduce cross-national duplication of effort. Within only a few months after publication of the review, the Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the Chief Executive of the UK Patent Office (UKIPO as of 2 April 2007) have now signed the Patent Prosecution Highway Pilot Agreement, which should benefit applicants both in Europe and Japan.

On 16^th January 2007, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) initiated a new programme to exchange patent application priority documents electronically between the two offices, following an agreement between the two offices in 2005.

On 12 December 2006, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Regulation (EC) No. 1901/2006 on medicinal products for paediatric use (see our previous News article, ‘Patent Term Incentives to Improve Paediatric Medicines’). The regulation will enter into force, with direct effect in member states, on 26 January 2007.

The Technical Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office has attempted to clarify further its position on the patentability of diagnostic methods. This follows the issue of decision G1/04 of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (see our previous article http://www.withersrogers.co.uk/content/view/73/73/ ).