One of the legacies that the year we are about to leave behind will leave us is the Judgment of 6 October 2015 handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in Case C-471/14 Seattle Genetics Inc. v. Österreichisches Patentamt (“Austrian Patent Office”). The case had its origins in a request…
Andorra has a well-deserved reputation as a wonder of nature. In spite of its tiny size (468 Km2) it offers the best of both worlds: endless trekking tracks leading you to the most remote lakes and peaks in summer, ski resorts with up to 193 km of slopes in a single resort in winter and,…
Readers will not be surprised on reading that the new Spanish Patent Act, which is due to come into force on 1 April 2017, establishes a remuneration right in favour of employees who have made an invention when their personal contribution and the importance of the invention clearly exceed the explicit or implicit contents of…
The assessment of inventive step is a legal assessment which can be reviewed by the Supreme Court through what is known as the “cassational appeal”. The Supreme Court confirms the validity and suitability of the “problem-and-solution approach” to assess the inventive step requirement and that it is not sufficient that the expert in the field…
This month of October will fade away, leaving behind it the “Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on Provisional Application”, done at Brussels on 1 October 2015, the purpose of which – as its name suggests – is to provisionally apply Articles 1-2, 4-5, 6(1), 7, 10-19, 35(1, 3 and 4), 36-41…
One of the challenges raised by today’s inventions, which are often the result of research efforts carried out by teams comprised of scientists based in multiple jurisdictions, is how to comply with national requirements which sometimes entail contradictory obligations. For example, let’s imagine a situation where an inventor is subject to the laws of country…
Article 118 of the EPC (entitled “Unity of the European patent application or European patent”) states that: “[…] the text of the application or patent shall be uniform for all designated Contracting States, unless this Convention provides otherwise.” Like other Articles such as Article 2.2, 14.3, 43.1, 130.1 or 148.1, Article 118 follows the logic…
On 3 June 2015, the High Court of Justice (“Tribunal Superior de Justicia”) of Madrid handed down a judgment which has alerted everyone of the need to have robust systems in place to make sure that a deadline for paying renewal fees is not missed. The facts of the case may be briefly summarised as…
One of the tricky consequences of Article 64 of the European Patent Convention (“EPC”), which establishes that the European patent is immediately enforceable after its publication, and Article 99, which provides for “post-grant” oppositions, is that quite often the combination of these two articles fuels two trains that run in parallel where the validity of…
One of the issues which will be discussed at the next annual meeting of AIPPI, due to take place in Rio de Janeiro in October 2015, is Q244, entitled “Inventorship of multinational inventions.” In today’s world, it is becoming increasingly frequent for inventions to be the outcome of teamwork conducted by persons from different jurisdictions….
