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…
As could almost have been predicted, the European Parliament has cancelled its First Reading and its vote on the creation of unitary patent protection. It has instead now scheduled just a brief hearing for 14 February 2012, to be held between 9:00 and 10:20 a.m. Members of the European Parliament will present their reports in…
The German Federal Court of Justice recently issued a decision entitled ‘E-Mail via SMS’, November 22, 2011, X ZR 58/10, in which it was found that when seeking to improve a data structure prescribed in an international standard, a skilled person would consider mechanisms already described in the standard when solving the identified technical problem….
Just a few years ago, the German IP profession suddenly became very, very nervous. The Regional Court of Düsseldorf had issued its first of a handful of decisions wherein the German part of a European Patent was declared ineffective ex tunc for lack of a proper translation of the patent specification into German. This was…
According to the decision “Diglycidverbindung”, if the variant does neither fall under the literal scope of the claim nor corresponds to a (non-claimed) example in the description, infringement by equivalent means still seems to be possible under certain circumstances.
