SGR’s Greg Kirsch, partner and Head of the firm’s Intellectual Property Department, has been invited to make a presentation at the European Patent Office (EPO), in the Hague, Netherlands, on July 5, 2018.

The EPO, established in 1977 and operating under the European Patent Convention, in parallel with but separate from the European Union, is a major regional authority that receives and reviews patent applications, and grants patents for its member countries.  Patents granted by the EPO can thereafter be nationalized in any and all of the member countries, and are thereafter enforceable in such countries.  Along with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO), the EPO cooperates as one of the Trilateral Patent Offices, representing three of the major patent offices of the world.  The EPO, a large agency with over 6,800 employees, is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and has a major branch office in the Hague, Netherlands (where Kirsch will be presenting).  The EPO also has smaller branch and liaison offices in Berlin, Germany, Vienna, Austria and Brussels, Belgium.

Kirsch’s presentation will be entitled “Recent developments in the US regarding the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (CII), both in the federal courts and at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)”, and the attendees will include patent examiners and senior management from the EPO.  A significant portion of Kirsch’s US patent law practice focuses on computer-implemented inventions, and he has assisted numerous companies large and small, as well as universities, in procuring, exploiting, enforcing and defending patent rights over his 28 years as a patent attorney.  He has been involved in seminal decisions regarding CII patents in the US courts, and he’s a frequent speaker and author on this subject.  In addition to his full-time legal practice, Kirsch also serves as an adjunct professor of patent and IP law at both Emory University School of Law (Atlanta) (since 1997) and Washington University School of Law (St. Louis) (since 2011).