Mr Justice Morgan handed down judgment on 22 July 2020 ([2020] EWHC 1968 (Pat)) in relation to two patent infringement actions brought by Lufthansa which were heard together. The first infringement action was against two defendants, Astronics Advanced Electronic Systems and Safran Seats GB Ltd. The second action was against Panasonic Avionics Corporation. It is…
Mishan (T/A Emson) v Hozelock & Ors [2020] EWCA Civ 871 Since Arnold LJ’s elevation to the Court of Appeal in 2019, he and Floyd LJ have heard about 11 cases together, spanning a mixture of areas of law, some patents cases and some not. In the majority of these cases, Floyd LJ (or a…
The UK has notified the secretariat of the European Council it withdraws its ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. This has just been announced by the UPC Preparatory Committee. Apart from depositing the withdrawal notification, there has been a parliamentary written statement in the House of Commons by Amanda Solloway (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Minister…
Full support for the Unified Patent Court Agreement, complete rejection, long lists with points of concern. The German government has published the reactions to its consultation on the new draft ratification bill for the UPCA. A new ratification process was started last March, after the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) declared void the process of…
The tendency of English people to be understated in their use of language (other than on Twitter…) is often joked about with continental friends and colleagues. For example, when an English person expresses a slight disagreement, their continental counterpart might have felt more able to be blunt and say that something is just plain wrong. …
The German government has been acting fast since the Federal Constitutional Court declared void the German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement in March. It submitted a new draft bill to ratify the UPCA last week, which was sent for consultation to associations and other institutions. Their deadline for filing opinions is three weeks….
The English Patents Court has often been regarded as a relatively favourable jurisdiction for patentees seeking interim relief in the life sciences arena. This is for various reasons, including the fact that the English Court follows the approach adopted by the House of Lords in the American Cyanamid case, in which an assessment of the…
The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) in the UK has called for clarity over the patenting of innovations created by artificial intelligence. The issue has drawn a lot of attention lately. Last January, the EPO stated a machine cannot be an inventor, refusing patent applications EP 18 275 163 and EP 18 275 174 in which a machine called…
After the UK’s Prime Minister announced via a televised address on 23 March 2020 the lockdown of the UK in a bid to combat the ever-increasing impact of COVID-19, legal practitioners were keen to see how the UK Courts would cope with such measures especially given that in the High Court at least, video and…
On 1 April 2020, the Court of Appeal, led by Floyd LJ, handed down judgment concerning the strike out of an Arrow declaration in litigation between Mexichem and Honeywell. Honeywell owns six patents that focus on the use of two refrigerants (‘ze’ and ‘yf’) in mobile air-conditioning systems (“MACs”), often used in cars, with a…
