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Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Enforcement, Exceptions to patentability, Inventive step, Novelty, Prior use right, Sweden

(Bird & Bird)/

The Stockholm District Court held the Swedish part of a European patent concerning a method of growing two or more plants invalid, due to lack of inventive step. Despite requests for limitations by the proprietor the patent was declared invalid in its entirety. Infringement, exceptions to patentability and prior use rights were also considered by…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Extent of Protection, Inventive step, Procedure, Sweden, Validity

(Bird & Bird)/

In a combined patent infringement and nullity case, the Svea Court of Appeal upheld the validity of Roche Diagnostics’ European patent as far as Sweden was concerned, but held, other than the District Court, that the alleged infringer did not infringe the patent at issue. The Court of Appeal further held that a patent can…

NPE, United States of America

(Clifford Chance)/

Patent trolls, also called “non-practicing entities” (“NPE”), a rather more elegant name, have become a serious threat to the patent system, particularly in the IT arena in the United States (“U.S.”). As readers will know, patent troll is the expression normally used to designate companies that simply hold patents for the purpose of forcing third…

NPE, PAE, United States of America

(Foley&Lardner LLP)/

On June 4, 2013, the U.S. White House issued a press release announcing its “Task Force on High-Tech Patent Issues.” The press release outlined five executive actions and seven legislative recommendations “designed to protect innovators from frivolous litigation and ensure the highest-quality patents in our system.” The target of these initiatives are so-called “patent trolls,”…

Germany, Injunction, Procedure

(Rospatt Osten Pross)/

by Stefan Lieck In a judgement of 17 January 2013 (docket no. I-2 U 87/12), the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court confirmed its previous case law according to which the issuance of a preliminary injunction against generic companies based on patent law is possible under less stringent conditions. According to the case law of the Düsseldorf…

Germany, Inventive step

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

One of the big difficulties in the everyday evaluation of inventive step revolves around the role that the problem underlying the invention should play in such evaluation. Two examples of more recent decisions of the German Federal Court of Justice are provided here to illustrate “the problem”. In its decision Kosmetisches Sonnenschutzmittel III (X ZR…