Statement Adopted on the Occasion of a Conference on “Grace Period“ in Kiev, 10 October 2013

In the Kiev Conference on “Grace Period,” jointly convened by the Federation of European Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NAS), chaired by Professor Joseph Straus, chair of ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, representatives of ALLEA for the first time met with representatives of the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japanese Patent Office (JPO), the State Intellectual Property Office of the PR China (SIPO), and the State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine, to discuss the instrument of grace period in patent law which immunises inventors against their own disclosures preceding the filing of patent applications.