A patent is a document, issued, upon application, by a government office (or a regional office acting for several countries), which describes an invention and creates a legal situation in which the patented invention can normally only be exploited (manufactured, used, sold, imported) with the authorization of the holder of the patent. ‘Invention’ means a solution to a specific problem in the field of technology. An invention may relate to a product or a process. The protection conferred by the patent is limited in time, generally 20 years. In a number of countries, inventions are also protectable through registration of a ‘utility model’ or ‘short-term patent’.
While real news about one of the most popular topics of this blog, i.e. the UPC, is rare and no one following our blogs regularly (see e.g. 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019) should be greatly surprised about the UK’s decision to back out of the Unitary Patent System, the EPO continues to be a source…
by Sabine Möhle, Klemens Stratmann and Thorsten Bausch Decision T 1621/16 of Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.06 deals with a patent concerning a liquid hand dishwashing detergent composition. In a broader context, T 1621/16 will be of interest for practitioners struggling with the allowability of amendments under Article 123(2) EPC based on multiple selections from…
In Odiorne v. Winkley (1814), Harvard professor Joseph Story, then sitting as a Judge at a Circuit Court of the District of Massacusetts, upon being called to decide whether a machine infringed a patent wrote, in the context of that case, that “The material question, therefore, is not whether the same elements of motion, or…
On 20 December 2019, The Danish Maritime and Commercial court ruled in a preliminary injunction case regarding a patented rat barrier. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant should be prohibited from producing, marketing and selling products in numerous European countries. The case concerned whether the patentee, Nordisk Innovation ApS, could obtain a preliminary injunction preventing…
by Ben Millson IPCom’s latest foray into standard essential patent litigation has reached a surprising outcome at first instance; its patent was held valid, essential and infringed in amended form by Recorder Douglas Campbell QC, sitting as a judge of the Patents Court, in a judgment dated 28 January 2020. However, Vodafone succeeded in relying…
The Board’s inter partes review decision declaring unpatentable a system that monitors and controls remote devices was reversed. Based on improper claim construction, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reversed a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board declaring a patent system that monitors and controls remote devices as unpatentable….
by Sarah McFarlane As an early Christmas gift, on 18 December 2019, His Honour Judge Hacon handed down a judgment in the matter of Adolf Nissen Elektrobau v Horizont Group. This case concerned the field of electric road traffic signs. Horizont’s UK patent (the ‘Patent’) claimed a board to be mounted on to vehicles which…
Barcelona Commercial Courts have a well-deserved reputation for being dynamic and creative. Not surprisingly, it was Judge Ferrándiz, already retired from the Supreme Court, who back in 1993, when he was sitting at Section 15 of the Court of Appeal of Barcelona, had the idea of specializing that Section on a small number of commercial…
As was rightly noted on this blog, the skilled person’s “hope” of solving the objective technical problem using the means that led to the (later claimed) invention, has disappeared from the Guidelines for Examination. What we are left with is the (perhaps) more objective “expectation of some improvement or advantage (see T/83)”. Interestingly, this expectation…
On 5 December 2019, the IP Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) handed down two decisions in which – in a first for China, the SPC heard and decided on both the patent validity and infringement disputes in one consolidated proceeding. Background The two actions arose out of a patent infringement dispute between the…
