Germany

Case Law, Germany, Inventive step

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

General disadvantages of fixed-dose combinations cannot reduce the reasonable expectation of success derivable from the prior art with respect to the formulation of a pharmaceutical composition containing two specific active pharmaceutical ingredients. A synergistic effect is not suitable to establish inventive step of a fixed-dose combination of two active pharmaceutical ingredients, where the synergistic effect…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Germany, Scope of protection, Second Medical Use

(Krieger Mes Graf & v. der Groeben)/

The Court of Appeal Düsseldorf held that the offering of certain products by the defendants was not covered by the scope of the patent due to the specific “Swiss type” wording, which does not grant an absolute product protection, and due to the fact that the advertising of the defendants did not address the patented…

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, (Indirect) infringement, Enforcement, European Union, Germany

(Rospatt Osten Pross)/

by Hetti Hilge The Higher Regional Court Düsseldorf has set up a second Senate (panel of judges) that is specifically competent for patent infringement litigation. The Higher Regional Court is the appeal instance for first instance judgments of the Regional Court Düsseldorf in patent cases. Already at the beginning of 2013, a third civil chamber…

EPC, Germany, United Kingdom

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /4 Comments

Article 123 (2) EPC and corresponding national provisions prohibit an applicant or patentee from amending a patent application or patent such that its subject-matter extends beyond the content of the application as originally filed. The statute is the same throughout Europe, but the practice is not always so. An issue where the Case Law of…

Case Law, Germany, Priority right

(Krieger Mes Graf & v. der Groeben)/

The FCJ held that the right to claim priority, which is in fact the right to file a follow-up application, can be transferred to a third party who was not the applicant of the earlier application. This transfer is governed by the law of the earlier application, in this case German law. Neither German law…

Case Law, Enforcement, Germany, Procedure

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

In preliminary injunction proceedings: to fulfil the requirement of urgency a patentee must actively and with determination enforce the patent. A patentee does not have to wait for the outcome of nullity proceedings if a generic company has launched an infringing product on the market, thereby causing irreparable harm to patentee. A full summary of…

Case Law, Enforcement, Germany, Procedure

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

As a rule, an applicant has a right to inspection of respondent’s premises in order to prepare a claim for damages due to illegal exploitation of secret know-how. The applicant must designate construction plans which are to be inspected, otherwise the request for inspection will not be sufficiently precise and clear under Sec. 253(2) CCP….

Germany

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

Owing to the amendments to the German Patent Act (GPA) passed with the so-called Patent-Act Amendment Act of October 19, 2013 (Federal Gazette 2013, 3830), a number of user-friendly changes have been implemented. The most important ones, including electronic file inspection, early first patent examination during search proceedings and improvements in patent opposition proceedings, as…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Damages, Enforcement, Germany

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

(1) If a plaintiff can prove there was an “offering” of means for the patented purposes, it can be assumed that the means were also delivered for those purposes, and that therefore the plaintiff has a right to claim damages and the provision of information due to indirect infringement. (2) When a patent is assigned…