This generally refers to the value of a member’s benefits calculated using his completed pensionable service and actuarial assumptions that include an allowance for projected increases in the member’s salary.

A Profit à prendre that allows its owner to graze livestock on another's land.

This Precedent Patch register is designed to help you keep track of the software patches applied in your organisation, and to log any known or reported issues. Please click for the register. Please note that this register has been prepared in Excel and it therefore cannot be downloaded to Word. You can save this register to a location of your choice following the same steps as you would to save any other Excel document—go to 'File', click 'Save as', give the document

Patents protect inventions. A grant of patent runs for a term of 20 years provided the periodic renewal fees are paid. Patents are granted by the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) for which the inventor or legal owner of the invention can apply.

The Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Court of Milan’s Specialised Business Division to strengthen cooperation and promote the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in patent and intellectual property disputes. The MoU covers cooperation on PMAC-administered mediation, arbitration and expert determination, as well as training and the exchange of information and best practice.

The Patent Office is the proper name of the Intellectual Property Office. It is where all applications for domestic patents, designs and trade marks are made.

Capital allowances are available and provide a deduction for capital expenditure on acquiring two particular types of intangible fixed asset (IFA): • patents (which are considered in this Practice Note), and • know-how (for which, see Practice Note: Know-how allowances) These allowances are principally available to individuals and other unincorporated entities for new acquisitions. Patent and know-how allowances are not available, however, to a person carrying on a trade to which the cash basis applies. For companies, capital allowances are only available for qualifying capital expenditure on patents where the acquirer is not within the corporate IFA tax regime in respect of the patent. Broadly, this means that the acquisition of a patent by a company from an unrelated party on or after 1 April 2002 (or from a related party on or after 1 July 2020) should generally not give rise to a patent allowance. For more information about when a patent is within the corporate IFA tax regime, see Practice Notes: What is an intangible fixed asset? and Excluded intangible fixed assets. Patent allowances Capital allowances

Patent ambiguity describes wording in a legal document that is obviously unclear or contradictory on its face, without needing external evidence to reveal the problem. It is commonly contrasted with “latent ambiguity”, which only becomes apparent when the wording is applied to particular facts. The concept is widely used in contract law, wills and trusts, property instruments and commercial documents across England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, with broadly consistent meaning. It is a descriptive expression rather than a statutory definition, but its treatment is shaped by case law on interpretation and admissibility of extrinsic evidence. Where a patent ambiguity exists, courts in all four jurisdictions focus on the objective meaning of the language, read in context. Traditionally, courts were reluctant to admit extrinsic evidence to cure a patent ambiguity in a will, but modern approaches to interpretation and rectification (for example under the Administration of Justice Act 1982 in England and Wales and Scotland, and equivalent Irish developments) may permit limited recourse to background material. Identifying a patent ambiguity is therefore critical when advising on drafting, interpretation risk, and prospects for rectification or construction proceedings.

This Practice Note deals with the various ways that a patent owner can amend its patent. There are several different ways to amend a patent, at various stages of its life, and depending on whether the application for the patent originated in the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO), the European Patent Office (EPO) or under the international Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) system. Patent amendment is not freely allowable because this would mean the goalposts shifting on where the boundaries of the patent owner’s monopoly rights lie. This is not acceptable in a patent system where the owner has exclusive or so-called ‘monopoly’ rights, since the public accessing the register of those rights must be able to determine whether or not they might infringe the patent, without the patent changing its scope over time. On the other hand, it is not possible to definitively know at the time of applying for a patent, the existence of every possible piece of prior art, for example. So if prior art comes to light later, it should be possible to amend

IP analysis: The Patents Court has held that Arc’s rights protecting its Endocuff and Endocuff Vision medical devices are valid and that Cantel’s AmplifEYE device infringes all but one of these rights. The Endocuff, Endocuff Vision and AmplifEYE are plastic cuffs which are fixed to the end of colonoscopes to assist in the detection of cancerous growths in the colon. The rights in question were Arc’s EP and UK patent for a ‘medical scoping device’ and its registered Community designs and UK unregistered design rights for the design of the Endocuff and Endocuff Vision.

This Practice Note sets out the three routes available for obtaining patent protection in the UK. It then focuses on how to apply for a UK (GB) national patent at the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and discusses the following stages of patent prosecution: filing the patent application, preliminary examination and searches, publication, substantive examination, and grant. It also discusses patent classification, patent families, priority applications, divisional applications and accelerated patent prosecution. The three routes to patent protection in the UK Patent protection can be obtained in the UK by filing a: • national patent application • European patent application, or • international patent application These three application routes can result in two types of UK patents: • UK national patents (UK patents) • UK designations of European patents (EP(UK) patents) UK national patent applications are examined and granted by the IPO under the provision of the UK Patents Act 1977 (PA 1977) and the Patents Rules 2007, SI 2007/3291. UK patents are sometimes referred to as GB patents

Patent applied for is a descriptive label indicating that a patent application has been filed for an invention, but that no patent has yet been granted. It is commonly seen on products, packaging, marketing materials and in contractual documentation to signal that the proprietor is seeking patent protection.The phrase itself is not a defined term in UK or Irish patent legislation, but is widely used in practice across England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland with the same meaning. It may refer to a UK, Irish, European, unitary or international (PCT) application.Using “patent applied for” does not, of itself, create enforceable patent rights. Until grant, the applicant typically has only provisional or conditional rights, which vary by jurisdiction and depend on publication of the application and its eventual scope on grant. However, the marking can be relevant to questions of knowledge, wilful infringement, negotiations, and due diligence.Unlike “patent pending” (often used interchangeably), “patent applied for” emphasises that the application has been submitted, but gives no assurance as to validity, eventual grant, territorial scope, or enforceability. Misuse may, in some circumstances, engage provisions on false or misleading patent marking.