ISSN 2046-3049 Trends and Events is our annual publication in which the Federation reviews its previous year’s activities. It provides an overview of those IP issues which engaged industry during that period and tries to look beyond current issues to identify future areas of interest, activity or controversy.

‘Brexit’ poses considerable challenges for intellectual property law and presents uncertainty as to the involvement of the UK, following its exit from the EU, in existing and proposed international regimes involving European Union (EU) law. In March 2018, the text of a draft “partial agreement” was published[1]. It indicates that, assuming the UK and the EU reach agreement on the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, this will include a ‘transition period’ lasting from 29 March 2019 until 31 December 2020. During the transition period (if agreed) the status quo would largely remain in place for intellectual property. The relationship between the UK and the EU beyond 2020 remains a matter of negotiation. [1] Draft Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of 19 March 2018, updated by a joint statement from the negotiators of the European Union and the United Kingdom government on progress of negotiations under Article 50 TEU on the United Kingdom’s orderly withdrawal from the European Union, of 19 June 2018.

The Federation continually engages with the European Patent Office (EPO) to provide input to consultations on matters relating to implementing and ancillary regulations to the European Patent Convention (EPC) and to procedures of the EPO. The Federation maintains ongoing working relationships with EPO representatives, including meetings with the President and Directors throughout the year.

As in all recent years, the unitary patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC) dossier has been among the Federation’s highest priorities in the last 12 months, following the long-awaited agreement between the European Parliament and Council in late 2012 which resulted in the unitary patent and language Regulations being adopted in December 2012, and signature of the UPC Agreement on 19 February 2013.

James is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent Attorney, and has a Masters in IP litigation. He has over 20 years of experience in patents, having joined the patent profession directly after obtaining a degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford. James has rep­resented Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) on the Council of the IP Federation since 2013, and previously served on the IP Fed­eration patent com­mittee. He is an inaugural industry member in the IAM list of the World’s 300 Leading IP Strategists. James has worked on a range of subject areas in the pharma­ceu­tical and biotechnological sectors. He is also a member of the IP Committees of BusinessEurope, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA). He lives and works in the UK. In life outside MSD, he is an active Christian and a member of an evangelical church. He also enjoys teaching science to his daughter, exploring England and reading good books.

Following a proposal from Andrea Brewster in early 2015, IP Inclusive was officially launched at the end of November 2015 with the support of the Founding Organisations – CIPA, CITMA, IP Federation and FICPI-UK – and of the UK IPO, and 12 Charter signatories. Now IP Inclusive stands at 125 Charter signatories coming from all areas of the IP world, who thereby make a public commitment to the IP Inclusive principles of equality, diversity and inclusion. IP Inclusive has recently won the 2018 memcom membership excellence award for “Best Equality or Diversity Campaign” to add to the 2017 Managing IP award for Corporate Social Responsibility and to the OBE awarded to Andrea Brewster from last year. The memcom judges were looking for “evidence of a clear strategy / defined target audience” and “a practical and uncompromising campaign delivering lasting impact”. We very much hope the latter will be fulfilled.

Following previous HMG consultations in 2012 and 2016 in this area, we can now report that HMG launched a further consultation on its plans for an “ambitious new Industrial Strategy” in October 2017.  The IP Federation among others have positively engaged in this process. We welcome HMG’s continued firm commitment to encouraging innovation, and particularly collaboration and commercialisation relating to innovation. While we continue to support all HMG initiatives which are designed to achieve these goals for all innovators, such initiatives should be properly coordinated across HMG departments and agencies, developed in close consultation with large and small businesses, and supported by economic impact assessments. These should also support the wider UK prosperity agenda. (See also our previous policy papers PP 9/12, PP 6/16 and PP 8/17 in this regard.) Having considered the example proposals in the latest consultation document, we have offered the following specific comments.

The last review in Trends and Events on the topic of patent harmonisation (cf, Trends and Events, 2015) looked forward to a stepping up of work on SPLH from the B+ Sub-Group and from the Industry Trilateral, all working under the remit of the Group B+. Through 2017 and to date in 2018, the Industry Trilateral (IT3) has met numerous times, and with increasing frequency, both in person and via WebEx calls with the aim of trying to reach agreement on a possible SPLH package that could be acceptable to users.

One of the IP Federation’s chief lobbying tools is its policy papers. These are all available on the website at: www.ipfederation.com The policy papers on the website represent the views of the innovative and influen­tial com­panies which are members of the Federation. Members are con­sulted on their views and opinions and encouraged to debate and explore issues of practice and policy. Only after consensus is achieved are external bodies informed of the col­lective views of industry via the Federation.

Subject to the successful conclusion of a third and final pilot, begun on 1 July 2018 (details in next section of this report), it is hoped that, in a few years’ time, all PCT applicants will be offered a procedural option providing for –

one of the IP5 offices (European, US, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean) to act as a “main ISA” leading a collaborative exercise, the result of which will be that the main ISA issues a search report and written opinion in Chapter I based on both its own work and on inputs from the other four offices (called “peer ISAs”).

Such a collaborative exercise is currently officially called “collaborative search and examination (CS&E)”; but to avoid possible confusion with other initiatives (and possible future renaming), in this report the exercise will be called “PCT-IP5 search”.