On January 1, 2025, a new Patent Act entered into force in Sweden. The new act codifies the longstanding adherence of the Swedish Patent Office and patent courts to the substantive practice of the European Patent Office (EPO). Applicants familiar with the European Patent Convention (EPC) will immediately feel at home with the new act, which is partly modelled on the structure and the terminology of the EPC. An improvement, as compared to previous Swedish practice, is the opportunity to have more than one invention searched and examined within the framework of a single patent application.
The new act also completes the adaptation of Swedish legislation to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC), resulting in a slightly better position for patentees. For contributory infringement to be established, it is now required that the person providing means essential of an invention knows or should have known that those means are suitable and intended for putting the invention into effect (previously: knows or it is obvious from the circumstances).
Adaptation to the Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights provides a further improvement. Corrective measures (such as recall or definite removal from the channels of commerce, or destruction) may now be taken against products which the infringement concerns (previously: products manufactured without the consent of the proprietor of the patent).
A small but welcome change of practice came with the new Patent Regulation, which entered into force together with the new Act. It is no longer mandatory for the representative of an applicant or opponent to file a power of attorney. Nevertheless, it is expected that a power of attorney will still be required if the patent office is informed of a change of representative without being notified that the previous representative’s power has terminated.
Patent protection in Sweden may be obtained via a national Swedish patent application and/or by validating or requesting unitary effect of a European patent. Please feel free to contact the Rouse team in Sweden for further advice.
