On 20 September 2011, in a patent infringement case, the French Cour de cassation issued an important decision in which, for the first time, it refers to and relies on “the principle according to which a person may not contradict themselves to the detriment of another person“, i.e. on the estoppel. With this decision, the French supreme…
With this groundbreaking decision of the CJEU, the parties entitled to injunctive relief are provided with the opportunity to obtain not only an enforceable injunction, but if the injunction is violated, they can also ask the original court to impose disciplinary fines on the defendant in a simple, fast and cost-efficient manner and then enforce these fines in other EU member states, as a rule at the domicile of the defendant.
On 6 October 2011, Commercial Court number 5 of Barcelona handed down a judgment that has revisited the fine border between the safe territory of so-called “preparatory acts” and the prohibited region of “offers for sale”. MSD filed a patent infringement action against a Spanish company that had obtained marketing authorisation and price to market…
Patentability of an invention is not excluded by the mere fact that the only feature of the patent claim not comprised in the state of the art is a dosage regime. Click here for the full text of this case. A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
The Swedish Supreme Court held that in cases where the infringing act is the sale of infringing goods, the damage (in this case the right to reasonable compensation for use of the invention and compensation for loss of profit) occurs as of the date a sales agreement is entered into, and the 5-year statute of…
The Court of Justice of the European Union in clarifying the phrase ‘civil and commercial matters’ in Article 1 of the Brussels I Regulation (No 44/2001) ruled that said Regulation is also applicable to court decisions that contain an order to pay penalties to ensure compliance with a judgment given in a civil and commercial…
The smartphone forum wars still show no sign of abating with another application for an expedited patent revocation action before the English Court (ZTE v Ericsson [2011] EWHC 2709 (Pat)), following closely on the heels of the HTC v Apple case that we reported on last month (judgment dated 19 September 2011; post dated 6…
by Rüdiger Pansch, rospatt osten pross And here we are again with more recent decisions on the bulk container paradox (see Brian’s post Bottling the After-Market; Max’s post on Patent Law and Philosophy; my post on Entitative Elements of Bulk Containers). Imagine you have an IBC (Intermediate Bulk Container), just as this one: Now, you…
The German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) issued a nullity appeal judgment on 12 July 2011 in which the requirements for an amendment to be held allowable under Art. 123(2) EPC and Sec. 38 German Patent Act seem to have been further tightened as opposed to the previous practice. The decision (case number X ZR…
Co-author Christiaen Dekoninck The Ghent Court of Appeal dismissed the claims of the German patent holder Grumbach and its Dutch licensee, Bollegraaf Recycling Machinery, relating to the Carbo Separator, a paper sorting device sold by their Dutch competitor Wagensveld to the Stora Enso group’s Belgian subsidiary. The Court affirmed the earlier decision of the President…
