COVID-19 Emergency – An update
The firm is fully operational in remote working mode. Our professionals and staff work with normal efficiency from their homes with secure connections to the Studio Torta network.
We made this choice even before the regulatory requirements came into force for safety, health protection and social responsibility reasons.
In full compliance with the emergency regulations, a plan of physical presence in the office is in place in order to handle mail and couriers, so as to ensure performance of all urgent activities and make sure that all deadlines are met.
In terms of deadlines, the emergency has prompted many national offices, the EPO, EUIPO and WIPO to take special measures to suspend or postpone deadlines, or facilitate the recovery of missed terms.
However, our policy is to respect the original deadlines and to use the possibilities offered by these special measures solely as a means of redress.
Specifically:
Italian PTO (UIBM)
All terms that are pending between February 23 and April 15, 2020 are suspended, with the exception of the deadlines before the Board of Appeals. Terms will run again from April 15, 2020, for the remaining part of the period.
Industrial property rights expiring between January 31 and April 15, 2020 shall remain valid until June 15, 2020, in order to facilitate renewal and maintenance operations.
EUIPO
All terms concerning trademarks and designs and expiring between March 9 and April 30, 2020 (included) are postponed to May 1st , 2020 (in practice May 4, since May 1st is a holiday followed by a weekend).
To consult the original text of the Executive Director’s decision: Decision No EX-20-3 of the Executive Director of the Office of 16 March 2020
EPO
All periods expiring on or after March 15, 2020 are extended to April 17, 2020. It should be noted that not all deadlines have been extended automatically; for example, deadlines for filing a divisional application and a response in preparation for oral proceedings are not extended.
If these deadlines cannot be met, the European Patent Office advises that the remedies provided for in Rules 134(2), 134(4) EPC and Rule 82 quater (1) PCT can be used.
To consult the original notice in the Official Journal: https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/official-journal/information-epo/archive/20200315.html
All hearings at the EPO are suspended until April 17 except those that have been confirmed to be held by videoconference.
All hearings at the Boards of Appeals are suspended until April 17.
For further information, see:
https://www.epo.org/news-issues/covid-19/oral-proceedings-examination-opposition.html and
https://www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals/communications/2020/20200320.html
WIPO
The World Intellectual Property Organization has not provided for any extension of the deadlines for international patent application procedures and has indicated possible remedies for defaults caused by the pandemic on pages 6 and 7 of the PCT Newsletter available at: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pctndocs/en/2020/pct_news_2020_3.pdf.
Similar remedies have been made available for both international trademark and international industrial design procedures.
Further information is available at:
https://www.wipo.int/edocs/madrdocs/en/2020/madrid_2020_7.pdf
https://www.wipo.int/edocs/hagdocs/en/2020/hague_2020_5.pdf
