As a rule, an applicant has a right to inspection of respondent’s premises in order to prepare a claim for damages due to illegal exploitation of secret know-how. The applicant must designate construction plans which are to be inspected, otherwise the request for inspection will not be sufficiently precise and clear under Sec. 253(2) CCP….
Owing to the amendments to the German Patent Act (GPA) passed with the so-called Patent-Act Amendment Act of October 19, 2013 (Federal Gazette 2013, 3830), a number of user-friendly changes have been implemented. The most important ones, including electronic file inspection, early first patent examination during search proceedings and improvements in patent opposition proceedings, as…
The Board of Appeal used its discretionary power to declare inadmissible an appeal based on the claims as granted after the proprietor had only defended amended claims before the opposition division. Even if this should not be construed as abandonment of the claims as granted, the request should not be admitted for reasons of procedural…
The Court of Appeal of Burgos dismissed the appeal against the Judgment of the Provincial Court of Burgos, which upheld a patent for a pharmaceutical composition and its use, despite the fact that clinical trials regarding the patented composition and the patented use were mentioned in the prior art. The full summary of this case…
(1) If a plaintiff can prove there was an “offering” of means for the patented purposes, it can be assumed that the means were also delivered for those purposes, and that therefore the plaintiff has a right to claim damages and the provision of information due to indirect infringement. (2) When a patent is assigned…
The French Supreme Court condemned a patentee’s undue use of an evidentiary measure (infringement seizure, “saisie-contrefaçon”) as a way to obtain information from a competitor, specifically information relating to the manufacturing processes of its direct competitor, beyond the scope of the lawsuit (“fishing expedition”). The full summary of this case has been posted on Kluwer…
The Federal Circuit decision in Novatris AG v. Lee, Nos. 2013-1160, -1179 (Jan. 15, 2014), interpreted 35 USC § 154(b)(1)(B)(i) as it relates to the impact that a Request for Continued Examination (RCE) has on a PTA award for the USPTO’s failure to grant a patent within three years of its filing date (so-called “B delay”…
As readers of this blog may recall, the Danish government has for some time attempted to persuade a 5/6 majoirity of the Danish parliament to agree to cast the vote in favour of Danish accession to the UPC. Two political parties represented in the Danish parliament have, however, remained staunch opponents of Denmark joining the…
Now that the holidays are over and the U.S. Congress has headed back to work, it is a good time to review what is happening with U.S. patent reform. The Goodlatte Innovation Act passed the House in December, so attention now turns to the Senate, where the Leahy Patent Transparency and Improvement Act may be…
The Hanover Trade Fair is the world’s leading trade fair for industrial technology and will take place between 7 and 11 April 2014. The CeBIT is the world’s largest computer expo and will be held between 10 and 14 March 2014. With regard to these important trade fairs and many more taking place in Hanover,…
