Dr. Simon Klopschinski rospatt osten pross – Intellectual Property Rechtsanwälte In the international investment arbitration of Eli Lilly v. Canada the arbitral tribunal rendered on March 16, 2017 the first final award ever on patents and international investment law, thereby creating a completely new forum for litigating patents (ICSID Case No.: UNCT/14/2). The arbitral tribunal…

As some of you may know, the Munich District Court has a special approach concerning the procedure for patent infringement proceedings since late 2009, called the “Munich Procedure”. The members of of the two patent litigation panels just recently had the opportunity to commit themselves to a slightly modified procedure and to render more precisely…

by Bernward Zollner for rospatt osten pross In a recent decision of 10 January 2017 (BGH X ZR 17/13) concerning a “Restitutionsklage” against a final patent infringement judgement of the Appeal Court Düsseldorf the German “Bundesgerichtshof” has broadened the scope of the doctrine which the court has developed under the heading “Crimp-Werkzeug”. This doctrine was…

by Dr. André Sabellek In a recent judgment the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) took a stand on the question whether to grant the patent infringer a grace period for marketing the infringing products for a certain time after the final judgment (judgment of May 10, 2016, court docket: X ZR 114/13 – Wärmetauscher [heat…

The Federal Supreme Court just handed down a long-expected judgment on the prerequisites under which a plaintiff has to provide a collateral for legal expenses. The result may encourage further trolls to use the German litigation system. Background Under Sec. 110 German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO), a person who files a civil suit in…

In its decision of December 15, 2015 the Federal Court of Justice confirmed the judgment of the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court of 2014 concerning the direct infringement of use patents by manifest arrangement. In this case the defendants had manufactured insulation material made of glass fibres and sold it to the building industry in Germany….

by Bernward Zollner In a recent judgment announced on 27 October 2015 the German Bundesgerichtshof has issued a judgment which concerns joint nullity actions (X ZR 11/13 – Fugenband). Two nullity-plaintiffs had filed nullity actions at the German Bundespatentgericht seeking to nullify a patent. The German Bundespatentgericht had completely dis-missed both nullity actions. Against this…

by Miriam Büttner In a recent decision the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (OLG Düsseldorf) had to deal with the right to sue of exclusive licensees (judgment of 24 September 2015, docket no. I-2 U 30/15). https://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/olgs/duesseldorf/j2015/I_2_U_30_15_Urteil_20150924.html Background of the case was the request of an exclusive licensee for a preliminary in-junction against an alleged…