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Intellectual Property Law

: IPKat

Kein Patent auf Schwein?

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

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The IPKat spotted a rather strange notice on the EPO's website this morning, titled "Im Blickpunkt: Patent auf Schweinezucht" (rough translation: in focus: patent for pig selection). The notice, which is only available in German (even though the language of proceedings of the patent to which it relates is English), relates to EP1651777 granted to Newsham Choice Genetics, formerly known as Monsanto Choice Genetics.

(right: pigs and cats can live together in perfect harmony [source])

The patent claims a method of selecting pigs based on testing for a particular variation in a particular gene sequence. The patent does not claim the pigs selected by this method, nor does it lay claim to the particular gene sequence variation. Nevertheless, the patent has already been the subject of 16 attempted oppositions by various individuals, all of whom appear to have been prompted to do so by the German organisation known as "Kein Patent auf Leben" (handily abbreviated to www.keinpatent.de for their website).

What puzzles the IPKat is why the EPO is even paying further attention to this (quite clearly spectacularly ill-informed) pressure group. According to the EPO register, none of the would-be opponents have paid the opposition fee, so all will be deemed not to have been filed if they do not pay by the final date for doing this (which happens to be tomorrow, 16 April 2009). All the notices of opposition appear to have been cribbed from KPaL's website here, and are obviously deficient in pretty much all of the usual aspects of oppositions. The IPKat has not been able to find any advice on this website about how to properly file an opposition, or what grounds might be useful for doing this, and can only assume that KPaL are encouraging people to file fake oppositions merely as an irritant to the EPO.

Can anyone else shed more light on this matter? Did any IPKat readers see the demonstration planned by KPaL scheduled for today?

Full post as published by IPKat on April 15, 2009 (boomark / email).