Case Law

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

The Court of Appeal denied Actavis’ claim for declarations of non-infringement in respect of several national designations of Eli Lilly’s European Patent. Whilst agreeing with the High Court that the national designations in suit were not directly infringed, it, nevertheless, overturned the prior decision on the basis of there being indirect (contributory) infringement. The Court…

Case Law, EPO, EPO Decision

(V.O.)/

In a decision to refund an additional search fee, an EPO board rejected a determination of non-unity based on a priori technical differences, which determined different problems solved by different dependent claims without determining patentability with respect to the available prior art found for the independent claim. Instead, lack of unity should be decided based…

Case Law, Portugal

(University of Coimbra)/

Obtaining an authorization to introduce generic medicaments into the market before the expiration of a patent as well as transferring the authorization to third parties does not infringe patent rights in substances used in those medicaments. Nevertheless, the exploitation of such medicaments can only take place upon the expiration of the patent or the respective…

Case Law, Germany

(Krieger Mes Graf & v. der Groeben)/

The Federal Court of Justice held that claim construction has absolute priority before issues of invalidity, such as the inadmissible extension or issues of patentability of the subject matter, can be discussed. The Court also reiterated that the determination of the subject matter of a patent (the invention) cannot be abandoned with the mere reason…

Case Law, Norway

(Wikborg Rein)/

The Oslo District Court held that the climbing skin concept “Fisher Easy Skin” for ski-grip on a snow base launched by the defendants Finor AS and Fischer Sports GmbH (hereinafter jointly “Fisher”), did not infringe Norwegian patent NO 318691 (the “Hartmann-patent”) to which Active Brands AS (hereinafter “Active Brands”) was an exclusive licensee. The Hartmann-patent…

Case Law, EPC, EPO Decision

(V.O.)/

A board of appeal of the European Patent Office held that a conditional request for oral proceedings filed with a notice of opposition remains effective after appeal and remittal to the opposition division, even when the party fails to restate the request in response to an invitation for requests by the opposition division after the remittal….

Case Law, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

The assessment of inventive step is a legal assessment which can be reviewed by the Supreme Court through what is known as the “cassational appeal”. The Supreme Court confirms the validity and suitability of the “problem-and-solution approach” to assess the inventive step requirement and that it is not sufficient that the expert in the field…

Case Law, EPO Decision, European Union

(V.O.)/

In an appeal from an opposition decision that maintained the patent, an EPO board refused to admit an auxiliary request that had been filed by the proprietor during opposition and formally re-entered with the initial response to the grounds of appeal. Other than implicitly through arguments about the main request, the response failed to take…