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Manual of Patent Practice

The Manual of Patent Practice explains our practice under the Patents Act 1977.

The Manual recites sections of the Patents Act 1977 and sections of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 relating to patents. Each provision includes commentary with related legislation in the margin. Further parts of the Manual show official notices and directions from the Patents and Designs Journal. There is also a section on Supplementary Protection Certificates for Medicinal Products and Plant Protection Products.

We update the Manual regularly to reflect recent developments such as changes in the law and judicial decisions.

The most recent update occurred on 1 April 2013, when substantive changes were made to Sections 1, 2, 3, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 27, 73, 89A, 89B the SPC section, the Table of Cases and the Index. Details of the main changes PDF document(26Kb) are available.

Any new text in the April 2013 version is highlighted in red. A sidebar marks any paragraphs which have changed since the January 2013 version; all previous sidebars have been removed. The footer of each page includes an indication of the date of the latest update to that section of the Manual.

Please note that statements made in the Manual are not in themselves an authority for any action by the Intellectual Property Office and should not be used as a set of legal requirements. If you wish to point out an error in the Manual, you can contact the editor by e-mailing mppeditor@ipo.gov.uk.

A PDF version of the entire Manual of Patent Practice (PDF file 8.17Mb) is available, please note the large size of this document before downloading or printing. The sections are arranged in the order shown above and individual sections can be accessed via the above links.