Patent law

Patent legislation in the United Kingdom (UK) consists of Acts, Rules and Directions that set out legal rights, duties and procedures for patents.

The Patents Act 1977 PDF document(340Kb)

The Patents Act 1977 is the main patent law in the UK. It sets out the legal rights and duties for UK patents and patent applications, and how UK law relates to the European Patent Convention (EPC) and the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT). Later laws, including the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the Regulatory Reform (Patents) Order 2004, and the Patents Act 2004 External Link have changed the 1977 Act.

The Patents Rules 2007 PDF document(287Kb)

The Patents Rules 2007 set out the detailed procedures under the Act, and came into force on 17 December 2007.

  • A concordance PDF document(144Kb) between the Patent Rules 2007 and the superseded Patent Rules 1995 is available.

Directions

The Patents Act 1977 allows us to give Directions in some areas. These cover setting our hours of business and excluded days, forms required by the rules, and acceptable formats for submitting electronic documents to us.