In a world of increasing legal complexity, it is a common ground – except in Luxembourg – that the lack of specialisation results in the administration of injustice rather than in the administration of justice. The President of Section 15 of the Barcelona Court of Appeal appeared to have this logic in mind when, in…
The legendary deficient regulation of supplementary protection certificates (“SPCs”) has caused the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (the “SPTO”) and Spanish Courts to struggle as to whether or not the “restitutio in integrum” procedure available to patents is also applicable to SPCs. The High Court of Justice of Madrid, in a recent Judgment of 22…
On 15 October 2014 the Spanish Supreme Court confirmed its earlier rulings on two issues: after an IP right has been found invalid in first instance but the Court of Appeal overturns this decision because it disagrees with the argument that was the basis for invalidity in first instance, (how) should the Court of Appeal…
As announced by the Kluwer UPC News blogger earlier today, this morning the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) published its two judgments in cases C-146/13 and C-147/13 where, as expected, it has dismissed the nullity actions filed by the Kingdom of Spain (“Spain”) against Council Regulation (EU) No 1257/2012 (unitary patent) and…
In September of 2013, the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office (“SPTO”) published a draft Patents Act aimed at modernising the old Act 11/1986, of 20 March, on Patents, which is close to celebrating its 30th anniversary. After hearing the stakeholders concerned, on 11 April 2014 the Council of Ministers approved the draft and sent it…
The OCR (“Old Combination Room”) at Christ College is a lovely, warm and inspiring pine-paneled room located at the heart of one of the most traditional colleges at Cambridge University. For many many decades, like the OCRs of other colleges at Cambridge and at the other leading English university, it has been a place for…
In the blog published on 17 March 2015, we discussed the judgment dated 12 March 2015 of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) handed down in response to the preliminary questions referred by the High Court of Justice (England and Wales), Chancery Division (Patents Court) in a case between Actavis Group EHF,…
On 12 March 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) published the judgment announced in our last blog in Case C-577/13, in response to some of the preliminary questions referred by the High Court of Justice (England and Wales), Chancery Division (Patents Court) in a case between Actavis Group EHF, Actavis UK…
The Supplementary Protection Certificate (“SPC”) seas have been relatively calm after the turmoil caused by “Super Thursday” (i.e. 12 December 2013), when shortly before packing for Christmas the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) published three judgments on SPCs in a row. However, over the last few months there have been recent developments,…
For those who thought that patent litigation was only relevant for big pharma or cutting-edge telecom devices, it may be of interest to learn about a relatively recent judgment from the Court of Appeal of A Coruña that has resolved a fierce dispute around patents protecting mollusc cleaning machines. A Coruña is one of the…
