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Historically, damages used to be calculated in the so-called “execution” (i.e. enforcement) phase of the proceedings, i.e. a second phase of the proceedings aimed at implementing the declarations and orders included in the judgment handed down after declaratory infringement proceedings. Due to the abuse of this system, in practice, the “execution” phase resulted in complex…
The District Court held a patent entitled “Special Alcoholic Drink” invalid, due to lack of novelty and clarity as a non-enabling disclosure. Furthermore, the Court dismissed the invalidity action filed against the Patent Office, holding that it was neither the inventor nor the patent holder and also because it had only taken into account the…
The act of including a generic product into the official Austrian pharmaceutical product index before expiry of the relevant patent/SPC, is considered an act of “putting into circulation” and therefore a patent infringement. By the same token the act of applying for reimbursement by an application to be included into the “Red Box” pursuant to…
The German Supreme Court this year passed two major decisions on the requirements for invoking a right to prior use. In its Desmopressin decision (June 12, 2012, X ZR 131/09), the Supreme Court ruled that knowledge regarding technical effects is not required for a prior user to be in possession of an invention as long…
Since French Act No. 2007-1544 of 29 October 2007, which implemented Directive No. 2004/48/EC into French law, it is expressly stated in Article L. 615-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code (IPC) that “Any violation of the rights of the owner of a patent (…) shall constitute an infringement. An infringement shall imply the civil liability of the infringer”. The…
In a recent decision by the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court, the issue was whether a technical feature may consist in information attached to an object if such information increases the usability of the object. The case T-66-07, Svenco Papperssäcker AB v. Segezha Packaging A/S, Svenco had filed suit claiming infringement of its Danish patent…
In a recent decision the new Swiss Federal Patent Court confirmed that it adheres to the case law with regard of the wording of prayers for relief in Swiss patent proceedings. Unlike in other jurisdictions, plaintiffs in Swiss patent proceedings must be very careful if they just adopt the wording from their patent claims in…
On November 30, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the “ACLU/Myriad” gene patenting case (Association for Molecular Pathology v. Genetics, Inc.), taking on the debate over the patent-eligibility of human genes. The Court will review the August 16, 2012 Federal Circuit decision that held for the second time that Myriad’s claims directed to isolated DNA…
Note on High Court, 27 November 2012, Actavis/Eli Lilly Introduction Last year the English Supreme Court in a copyright case held that there is no doubt that the modern trend is in favour of the enforcement of foreign IP rights and that there are no issues of policy which militate against it nor is there…
Recently approved “Balduzzi Decree” (Law No. 189/12 of 8 November 2012 (confirming Law Decree 158/12 of 13 September 2012 – a consolidated version of the Decree is available here) seems to have changed quite a lot in terms of the protection of pharmaceutical patents in Italy, making it totally Inconvenient for generics to launch at…
