The Court of Appeal upheld a decision of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court that the patent in suit was novel and inventive over the prior art. In construing the numerical ranges of the patent, the Court of Appeal pointed out that the purpose of a comparative example is that identifies something outside the claimed invention…
The provision of a crystal form of a polymorphic substance, which the skilled person inevitably obtains if he uses a process suggested by the state of the art for the production of the substance, represents the result of activities to be expected by a skilled person and does not therefore by itself involve an inventive…
The court solved the question of inventive step using the problem-solution approach, defining the objective technical problem without including a pointer to the solution of the problem. This, however, did not help the patentee, since the solution to the problem was already to be found in the common general knowledge and was used in similar…
Patent claims relating to a virus-protection software to filter e-mail and electronic files are merely generic computer functions and not covered by a patent-eligible concept, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled. In affirming a decision of the federal district court in Seattle, Washington to dismiss the patent infringement case brought…
The Court of Appeal of the Hague confirmed that a technical effect may only be cooroborated by post-filed data if it is sufficiently plausible from the description. Further, extension of the process (counter)claim at a late stage in the proceedings was not permitted as it conflicts with efficient case management. Case date:11 December 2018 Case…
This decision by the FCJ confirms that the cited prior art should, generally, provide concrete suggestions, hints or at least provide other reasons beyond the recognizability of the technical problem to seek the solution of a technical problem in the way as presented in the patent. Case date: 10 July 2018 Case number: X ZR 65/16 Court: Federal…
For establishing inventive step it is not necessary that the prior art contains a pointer for combination, only that in the relevant prior art an incentive was present to combine the prior art. Case date: 27 November 2018 Case number: C/09/534649/HA ZA 17-651C/09/533643/HA ZA 17-599200.237.828/01 Court: Court of Appeal of The Hague A full summary of…
Regardless of whether someone intends to enforce their own supplementary protection certificate (SPC) or finds themself at the receiving end of an SPC infringement action, the question which grounds of invalidity justify the revocation of an SPC may become highly relevant. This question is all the more intriguing in light of the CJEU’s corresponding case…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has denied attorney fees to a medical device manufacturer in a dispute relating to an expandable surgical reamer patent, ruling that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the prevailing defendant’s motion for attorney fees. The district court rejected the plaintiff’s proposed claim…
Applying the so-called ‘Actavis Questions’ (further to the Supreme Court decision in Actavis v Eli Lilly), the Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion from the Patents Court on the issue of infringement. However, as the Court of Appeal upheld the first instance Court’s decision that the patent was invalid, this ultimately did not change…
