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Hello, my name is Dr. Jonathan Atkinson, and I am a UK and European patent attorney
specialising in the field of chemistry and pharmaceuticals.
I'm a shareholder of HGF Limited, which is one of Europe's leading IP firms,
and also a director of Atkinson IP Consulting Limited.
I have a degree and doctorate in chemistry from Oxford University,
my doctoral thesis concerned the synthesis of chiral derivatives of
morphine-type alkaloids in a stereo-selective manner.
In addition to being a UK and European patent attorney,
I'm also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a chartered scientists.
I will be talking to you today about the topic of challenging problematic patents belonging to third parties.
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Moving on to the next slide, we can see that the topic of challenging patents is a very extensive topic,
which is too large to be covered in a single presentation,
so today's presentation is part one of a two-part series.
It is possible to challenge a patent at the European Patent Office,
which is otherwise known as the EPO for short,
before the patent is granted, during the patent application stage,
or for a limited time after it has been granted as a patent.
Challenges that are levelled against a pending patent application are
done via a procedure which is known as 'Third Party Observations'.
On the other hand, challenges made against a recently granted patent at the EPO
are made using the Opposition procedure.
Today, we are going to focus on Third Party Observations, which are frequently known as TPOs.
In part two of the talk, we will look at Oppositions and Appeals.
