Bruce Dearling

Partner, Hepworth Browne

Bruce is a shareholder at Hepworth Browne and is responsible for CIIs, AI, communications and business technologies.

He has over 35 years of private practice and industrial directorship-level experience in the UK and internationally. He was the instructing attorney in the landmark UKSC decision [2026] UKSC 3 Emotional Perception’s Application on (i) the treatment of exclusions to patentability and EPO harmonization, (ii) the need to apply the intermediate step in advance of considering inventive step under the Pozzoli test and (iii) the UKSC’s guidance to adapt inventive step considerations to include the majority of the principles of the EPO’s Dun’s Licensing decision. In areas of unfair competition, database rights and extra-territorial evidence seizures, he has successfully directed litigation in Germany and other European countries at Court of Appeal and Supreme Court levels, seeing aspects expanded to criminal prosecution. His cross-border evidence gathering anticipated the later EU Data Preservation Order Regulation (EU) 2023/1543.

Bruce is a multi-nationally qualified patent and trade mark attorney and conseil. He is recognized by WIPO as an expert in the field of AI and patentability, and is the first patent attorney to be shortlisted for the Halsbury Award for the Rule of Law. He is also recognized as a leading and notable practitioner following receipt of industry awards for case of the year.

Contributed to

1

EPO and UK approaches to patenting software and AI

Practice Notes

This Practice Note introduces how software and AI can be patented in the UK. It looks at the approach taken by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and European Patent Office (EPO) to patenting inventions involving computer programs. It also discusses the Court of Appeal’s decision in Emotional Perception AI v Comptroller-General of Patents which considered the patentability of AI in the UK.