Patent Attorneys like myself are not known for their love of excitement. For example, I like reading lists. One regrettably exciting item that appears to have slipped off the ‘things to look out for in 2020’ lists that I have seen is the outcome of the constitutional complaints against the EPO in Germany. The outcome…
The debate over standard-essential patents (SEPs) is typically distinguished as much by concerns over competition than issues of patent law per se. Erixon argues: ‘…SEP disputes are less concerned about the rights and boundaries of patents, and more about antitrust limits to market behavior.’ At the European level EU institutions acknowledge the policy concern that…
In a thorough decision, Barcelona Commercial Court (Section 15) clarifies important findings on novelty, inventive step and claim construction. A technical feature disclosed in the prior art will not anticipate an identical feature if the exact same functionality is not described in the prior art, even if it is common ground that the prior art’s…
Holding bench trial instead of jury trial deprived SEP owner Ericsson of Seventh Amendment rights because trial was held to determine compensatory relief for mobile device maker TCL’s past infringement. Swedish telecommunications company Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson and its U.S. subsidiary Ericsson Inc. (together, “Ericsson”) should have been given a jury trial instead of a bench…
The appeal on a point of law, for which no leave was granted by the Federal Patent Court, was held admissible, because the grounds of appeal under §100 III 3 and 6 PatG were invoked. However, it was unsuccessful on the merits, since the deficiencies asserted by the patentee – namely that the decision was…
This decision is certainly worth reading if you deal with inventive step objections of the form “abstract algorithm implemented on a generic computer” or the like. The Board of Appeal provides a helpful review of case law, and pushes back the frequent assumption that improved algorithms cannot give a technical effect. This decision could well…
In the present preliminary case the consequence of the termination of the agreement between Medical Workshop and Sharpsight was that Medical Workshop was no longer able to use the name Invitria for the sale and marketing of the ophthalmalogic product protected by a patent owned by the single shareholder of Sharpsight. Case date: 16 October 2019…
Following the 2017 revamp of the Spanish patent system, only certain courts in Barcelona, Madrid and some other industrial hubs now have jurisdiction in patent matters. However, decisions from other courts in cases brought under the old rules are still trickling in. In this case, the Zaragoza Court of Appeal delivers a judgment which contains…
In its latest ruling on FRAND and the Art. 102 TFEU defense, the OLG (Higher Regional Court) Karlsruhe put an emphasis on the ‘fairness’ of the licensing negotiation procedure and thus on the ‘F’ prong of FRAND. To allow fair and expedient licensing negotiations and avoid a finding of abuse of dominance, the owner of…
Where an expression in a granted claim, taken literally and in isolation, would have the effect of excluding all of the disclosed embodiments from the scope of protection, but where a definition of the expression may be derived from the patent itself which would locate (at least some of) the disclosed embodiments within the ambit…
