In the decision T 1621/09 of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO, it was decided that late filed arguments of the appellant amended the case to such an extent that their admittance lay within the Board’s discretion, even though the new arguments were based on facts and evidence already in the proceedings. Having found so the Board, exercising its discretion, did not admit the new arguments into the proceedings.
The Higher Regional Court Dusseldorf decided on 26 April 2012 (docket I-2 U 18/12) that the admissibility (under Article 27 BR) of exclusive licensee’s patent infringement action despite pending NDA proceedings against patentee in another Member State depends on whether the declaratory judgment will have the force of res judicata against licensee. This must be…
This contribution compares various decisions of national European courts on inventive step in the case of a monohydrate of a (known) drug, i.e. calcipotriol.
Fairly recent case law of the EPO suggests that the concept of individualized disclosure may reach further than many people think. This can have severe implications for the validity of patents and patent applications, especially in the field of chemistry and life sciences. In the following these decisions and their potential consequences are analyzed and…
At the beginning of this year, the German Federal Court of Justice (“FCJ”) rendered in “Tintenpatrone II” (“Ink Cartridge II”) (Docket No. X ZR 94/10) a decision of interest concerning the relation of patentee and exclusive licensee with regard to the claim of damages, following it decisions “Ink Cartridge I” and “Cinch-Plug”. Plaintiff (1) is…
As in other jurisdictions, German Courts try to determine whether an invention is patentable over the prior art by looking at it through the eyes of the notional skilled person at the effective filing date of the patent at issue. In a decision pronounced on March 6, 2012 (docket X ZR 78/09), the German Federal…
The EPO Boards of Appeal distinguish between the anonymous character of third party observations in ex parte and inter partes appeal proceedings.
An article in the well-known IP magazine GRUR last year carried the heading “Do exhibitors at trade fairs in Germany enjoy immunity from the courts?” The author came to the conclusion that this question had to be answered in the affirmative after he had read the Federal Court of Justice decision “Pralinenform II” (a trademark…
Litigation and EPO Oppositions/Appeals surrounding a controlled-release dosage form of the drug oxycodone, a morphine-like opioid analgesic developed in 1918, has kept Europe’s Pharma IP Lawyers busy for a couple of years. One of the key EP patents in this battle has been EP 722 730, and almost everything about this patent is out of…
In its decision “Okklusionsvorrichtung” (Aga v. Occlutech), the Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) denied patent infringement by equivalent means since the contested infringing embodiment was disclosed in the description as an alternative to the claimed one. This decision was followed in the decision “Diglycidverbindung”. In a nutshell, the FCJ, in continuation of its decisions “Schneidmesser…
