The Federal Court of Justice recently addressed the scope of the so-called principle of concentration pursuant to sec. 145 Patent Act. If the patentee has filed an action, a second action based on a different patent against the same defendant is inadmissible in relation to the same or similar embodiments. The FCJ has now clarified…
The decision concerns the provisional enforcement of a court judgment on patent infringement. In an earlier decision in the same proceedings the Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) ruled that where the patent in suit is declared invalid the provisional enforcement of the infringement judgment is to be suspended. Now the FCJ has confirmed that the…
The FCJ decided that submissions by the parties which are expressly intended for the court only and not for the opposing party may not be included in the court file. As a consequence, they may not be relied on by the court and may not be disclosed to the opposing party for the purposes of…
The FCJ confirmed that the costs of the participation of a European Patent Attorney (Professional Representative before the EPO) in a patent case before the German civil courts are always recoverable from the losing party pursuant to sec. 143 (3) Patent Act. Case date: 14 April 2020 Case number: X ZB 2/18 (ECLI:DE:BGH:2020:140420BXZB2.18.0) Court: Federal…
In this decision, the German Federal Court of Justice deals with a number of practical issues concerning service inventions by German employees. In particular, it ruled on what must be contained in the employee’s inventor’s report and whether an assignment given by the employee in order to enable the employer to file for a US…
The case concerns the transfer of a priority right from an employee to his/her employer and the relevant time zone for determining the priority: 1. The validity of the transfer of rights to an invention by the employer by claiming it as a service invention is governed by the law applicable to the employment contract….
The Federal Court of Justice made the following findings in relation to the material and personal scope of the right to prior use: 1. Where a pre-used embodiment does not implement all features of the patent claim, a modification of the pre-used embodiment which implements all the features is not covered by the right of…
