An inventor and holder of a patent for a “smokeless pipe” could not pursue a lawsuit against the United States in the Court of Federal Claims based on allegations that various private persons had infringed his patent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The inventor identified no law that permitted…

Draft rules for the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) will be discussed during the next meeting of the UPC Preparatory Committee on 19 October 2015. Together with these rules, a Memorandum of Operation will be introduced regarding the proposed legal and operational structure of the Centre. Sam Granata,…

Secessionist pressure grows in Catalonia, after regional elections on 27 September 2015 (qualified as an informal referendum on independence) were won by supporters of an independent Catalonia. In Scotland supporters of independence have been far from silenced since they lost a referendum on the same issue last year. Kluwer IP Law found the following article…

Article 118 of the EPC (entitled “Unity of the European patent application or European patent”) states that: “[…] the text of the application or patent shall be uniform for all designated Contracting States, unless this Convention provides otherwise.” Like other Articles such as Article 2.2, 14.3, 43.1, 130.1 or 148.1, Article 118 follows the logic…

Since the scope of an amended patent claim was not substantially similar to the scope of the original claim, the patentee was not entitled to infringement damages for the period prior to the amendment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled (R+L Carriers, Inc. v. Qualcomm, Inc., September 17, 2015, O’Malley,…

‘Europe can become a more attractive forum for patent enforcement than the US’, according to Wouter Pors, partner of Bird & Bird. Kluwer IP Law interviewed him about the new draft proposal for the Rules on the European Patent Litigation Certificate and other appropriate qualifications. ‘We shouldn’t just focus on the minimum requirements.’ Pors expects the…

On 3 June 2015, the High Court of Justice (“Tribunal Superior de Justicia”) of Madrid handed down a judgment which has alerted everyone of the need to have robust systems in place to make sure that a deadline for paying renewal fees is not missed. The facts of the case may be briefly summarised as…