The Appellant had obtained both utility model and patent protection for a mechanical invention. The Defendant argued that the subject matter of both rights did not fulfil the novelty requirement, because it had been disclosed to the public by demonstrations of the invention to both individual persons and corporate entities prior to the priority date….

There have not been many decisions in 2010 from the English Patents Court that are likely to be regarded in future decades as seminal judgments. However, in the author’s view, the judgment of the Court of Appeal of 28 July 2010 in Schlumberger Holdings Limited v Electromagnetic Geoservices AS is likely to be cited frequently…

In a case involving the US multinational Mars and an Italian producer of rice (Riseria Monferrato), the Court of Appeal of Turin, by decision of 19 November 2008, tackled – one of the few cases in Italian case law – the interesting issue of the difference between discoveries and inventions and their patentability. The case…

The Court of Appeal of Milan established a principle whereby named inventors must be called in revocation actions and, if they are not, proceedings may not reach the stage of decision. This principle, which may sound strange to practitioners of other jurisdictions, is based on Art. 122, paragraph 4, of the Italian IP Code, according…

Sufficiency of disclosure is one of the requirements for the grant of a European patent (Art. 83 EPC). The disclosure in a patent specification shall enable the skilled person to apply the invention, i.e. to make the claimed product or apply the claimed process. A claimed product or process is often defined in general terms…