With the 1 July 2026 Phase II start date approaching, EUIPO has issued transitional guidance on the EU design reform package, giving applicants a clearer route through the changeover in terminology, filing practice and procedural handling. The former registered Community design, commonly known as the RCD, will formally move into the new name and framework of the registered EU design, or REUD.The most practical change is the removal of the Locarno class restriction for multiple design applications. Under the old approach, designs included in the same multiple application generally had to...

As the 2026 WIPO-EUIPO IP Management Clinic for green and sustainability-focused SMEs approaches its 10 June application deadline, a clearer support map is emerging for green-tech companies in the EU, EFTA countries and Ukraine. WIPO says the program will help selected businesses work on IP identification, protection, commercialization and international growth, while the EUIPO’s 2026 SME Fund continues to show where the filing tools sit in practice: 75% reimbursement for EU-level and national or regional trade mark and design fees, and 50% reimbursement for basic application, designation...

Following the weekend maintenance on 23 May, the EPO’s digital direction is easier to read than before. Public materials do not present every change as one single product launch, but the pattern is now clear: MyEPO is being reinforced as the operational hub for file access and online interaction, AI-supported classification is being extended behind the scenes, and AI-assisted minuting in oral proceedings is moving beyond pilot use.This is not just another interface refresh. For applicants and representatives, the more important point is that the EPO is steadily connecting filing, online...

EUIPO has recently pushed the question of cumulated IP protection back to the centre of practice. Through its latest public-facing guidance and training, the Office has started to frame more clearly a question that businesses often blur together: when can the same product shape, GUI or other digital content sit at the same time within copyright, registered design and three-dimensional trade mark protection? The answer is not a simple yes or no. Each right has to clear its own gate.The real importance of this latest guidance is not that it encourages companies to chase triple protection. It...

In its GEORGE ORWELL decision of 19 December 2025, the EUIPO Grand Board upheld the refusal of the word mark for a broad range of goods and services in Classes 9, 16 and 41. The core point is straightforward. For the relevant English-speaking public, George Orwell is first and foremost the name of a famous author. When that name appears on recordings, publications, educational services or entertainment services, consumers are likely to read it as a reference to subject matter, themes or authorship, not as an indication of commercial origin.The importance of the ruling goes beyond one...

A newly disclosed ruling from the UPC’s Munich Local Division puts a sharper spotlight on a familiar but often under-examined enforcement tactic: sending broad patent warning letters first and relying on commercial pressure before technical substantiation fully catches up. The message emerging from this development is not that warning letters are improper as such, but that the Court may look far more critically at campaigns built on expansive claim language without a concrete infringement record behind them.The more interesting shift is procedural. The defendants were able to push a form of...

On 25 June 2026, EUIPO said the 2026 SME Fund has moved past its halfway point. Under the first-come, first-served design of the scheme, some funding pots for trade marks and designs have already been exhausted, but vouchers for European and national prior art searches and for IP Scan remain open. For EU SMEs still weighing patent filing routes, that leaves a practical window to recover up to 75% of eligible official fees.The mid-year picture also says something about priorities. The faster-moving subsidies were quickly absorbed, while the support that helps businesses test freedom to...

On 17 February 2026, the UPC Court of Appeal in bioMérieux v Labrador Diagnostics refused to stay a revocation appeal because of parallel EPO opposition proceedings, and also refused to extend the deadline for the statement of grounds while waiting for the EPO oral hearing. The signal is straightforward: the mere fact that the same European patent is being contested before both the UPC and the EPO does not automatically trigger a “wait for Munich” logic. A stay remains discretionary, and the court is looking at the concrete balance of interests rather than at parallel opposition as a...

After a pilot phase, the European Patent Office has announced the wider use of AI-assisted tools for preparing minutes of oral proceedings. Under the workflow described by the EPO, audio from the hearing can first be transcribed by an AI tool, after which members of the division may use another AI tool to prepare a draft of the minutes; the final record remains under the responsibility of the competent examining or opposition division. The point is not to automate oral proceedings, but to make an important procedural record faster to produce and easier to check.For applicants, opponents and...

The 2026 edition of the EPO Guidelines for Examination has been in force since 1 April. By May, the new text is no longer a future reference point; it is now shaping drafting, prosecution timing and responses to examination communications. For European patent applicants, the practical impact is concentrated in a few areas: responsibility for AI-assisted drafting, the end of accelerated search under PACE, the novelty effect of product disclosures, and the way claims are interpreted in light of the description and drawings.These changes matter at the level of filing decisions. Using AI tools...

Following the launch of the EU–Japan Intellectual Property Action on 27 April and the May renewal of the JPO–EUIPO memorandum on trade marks and designs, the Japan Patent Office has further clarified how the cooperation is expected to work in cross-border e-commerce cases. The emerging framework centres on faster exchanges of information about suspected trade mark and design infringements, allowing platforms, rights holders and competent authorities in both markets to align evidence and enforcement steps before sellers shift listings or inventory across borders.The mechanism will not...

On 18 June 2026, the UPC released its latest monthly statistics. The more important development for practitioners, however, was not the headline caseload but the procedural message coming through a cluster of recent orders. The Court is drawing more precise boundaries around confidentiality review, front-loaded pleading discipline and security for costs. For businesses handling SEP, FRAND, infringement-plus-revocation or multi-country European patent disputes, these are no longer background issues. They affect defence timing, litigation budgeting and who inside the company can be...

EUIPO reported on 7 July that it received 104,263 EU trade mark applications between January and June 2026, up 8.4% year on year, while EU design applications totalled 61,951, down about 1%. Combined filings reached 166,214, the Office’s highest first-half total on record. The increase was driven by trade marks rather than designs, but the design figure remains strong enough to show that demand for unitary EU protection is holding up.The more practical change came with the design framework fully applicable from 1 July. EUIPO now accepts dynamic 3D representations in OBJ and STL formats and...

According to SEALSQ’s announcement of 18 June 2026, the European Patent Office has granted a divisional patent covering what the company calls a “Back-to-Physical” NFT architecture. The point is not an NFT in the abstract. The claimed model ties cryptographic credentials and ownership records to tamper-resistant semiconductor hardware so that a physical object carries a verifiable digital identity at chip level.That is why this development matters beyond blockchain headlines. For patent teams, the more interesting signal is that a data- and asset-heavy concept may become easier to defend...

On 30 June, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) drew a sharper line around what counts as genuine use of an EU trade mark in the platform economy. The dispute came out of long-running revocation proceedings and focused on a point many brand owners have quietly leaned on for years: if products remain listed on cross-border marketplaces, the store page can be reached from across the Union, and a handful of EU orders do come through, is that enough to resist a non-use attack against an EUTM?The Court’s message is uncomfortable, but clear. Pan-EU accessibility is not the same...

EUIPO’s design reform now allows new forms of representation in direct EU design filings: OBJ and STL files may be used for dynamic three-dimensional representations, while MP4 may be used for animated representations, subject to the technical limits set by the Office. As of 18 July 2026, however, WIPO’s public Hague System notices, news pages and current administrative framework do not appear to contain a matching confirmation that eHague can already receive those formats for international applications designating the European Union.Applicants should therefore keep the EUIPO direct route...

In its 2026 revision list to the Guidelines for Examination, the EPO expressly identifies the “Abolition of PACE for search” as one of the main amendments in Part E on procedural matters. This is more than editorial housekeeping. It reflects a reordering of how acceleration is meant to work in European patent practice: for newer European filings, the EPO has for years relied on a service objective to issue the extended or partial search report within six months rather than on routine applicant-triggered PACE requests for search; it then confirmed in a formal notice published at the end of...

At the end of March, the European Patent Office (EPO) publicly outlined the latest outcome of its dialogue with the German Association of Industry Intellectual Property Experts (VPP) and major corporate representatives: AI will continue to be integrated more deeply into the patent granting process and user-facing services, but this will not mean handing legal judgment over to machines. The shared position is becoming clearer: AI should strengthen efficiency, consistency and accessibility, while final legal decisions, procedural control and institutional accountability must remain firmly in...

A case brief circulated this week by the EUIPO’s anti-infringement centre suggests that the EU’s enforcement playbook is shifting earlier in the chain. According to the account, infringers were no longer relying on one fake sign used repeatedly. Instead, they used generative AI to produce thousands of text-and-image trade mark variants at speed, trying to slip past keyword-based filters before distributing goods across Europe through fragmented cross-border small parcels. The policy response was just as notable: EUIPO said it would flag unusually frequent trade mark variant filings with no...

On 26 March 2026, Advocate General Nicholas Emiliou delivered his Opinion in Case C-579/24 Austro-Mechana and AKM, adding an important new layer to the licensing architecture for online content-sharing service providers under the EU Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. In his view, when users upload protected content to a platform, the process does not involve only an act of communication to the public or making available to the public; it also involves acts of reproduction in the form of digital copies made on the platform’s servers.The real significance of the Opinion,...