The Brussels Bar Association (Dutch speaking section, hereafter BBA) recently issues the third guideline since it was created in 1994. In this Guideline the BBA instructs its members how they should safeguard the attorney-client privilege in the event of a saisie contrefaçon at the client. Since the Brussels courts have exclusive competence for patent litigation…
In last month’s blog about the recovery of legal costs in Belgian IP enforcement proceedings, it was announced that the Mons Court of Appeal would probably be the first Belgian court to hand down a substantive ruling on the consequences of United Video Properties / Telenet (CJEU of 28 July 2016, C-57/15). A week later,…
On April 3, 2017, the latest decision was handed down in the patent revocation battle between medical device manufacturer Nouvag and Jean Malak, a plastic surgeon specialized in liposuction. This conflict has taken on epic proportions, in part because of the ruling rendered by the Belgian Supreme Court on February 3, 2012 confirming that the…
The UK IPO (the British bureau for intellectual property) recently made clear to various stakeholders that the proceedings for British approval of the agreement on a Unified Patent Court, better known as the “UPC Agreement”) continue. The UK IPO mentioned however that the UPC Agreement will probably be voted upon only after the British EU…
This question has been on the minds of many European IP litigation stakeholders since January 26, 2015. On that date, the Court of Appeal of Antwerp in United Video Properties v. Telenet referred some preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) regarding the (in)compatibility of Belgium’s system of capped recovery…
