Case Law

(Indirect) infringement, Amendments, Austria, Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Extent of Protection, Validity

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The Austrian Supreme Court decided that a patent owner is free to base an infringement action on a limited version of its claims, irrespectively of initiating formal limitation proceedings. An application for cost reimbursement by the Main Association of the Austrian Social Insurance Institutions, which contained a declaration of the price and the availability of…

Case Law, EPC, Exceptions to patentability, Inventive step, Scope of protection

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This case relates to the opposition against Amazon’s famous ‘one-click’ patent. The Board ruled that what is required for obtaining patent protection for a software-implemented business method is that the software should contribute to a technical effect which goes beyond the mere implementation of the business method itself. The Board held that although computer-implemented business…

Case Law, EPC, Exceptions to patentability, Inventive step, Sufficiency of disclosure

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In this case the Board ruled that features providing a displayed icon of a three-dimensional appearance have technical character and thus should be considered when assessing inventive step. According to the Board these features specify how the information is displayed and not what is displayed so that these features do not fall under the category…

Case Law, Netherlands, Novelty, Scope of protection, Validity

(Brinkhof)/

As the Supreme Court had held for European Patents (SC 6 March 2009 Boston Scientific/Medinol), the Court of Appeal now affirms that the so-called Spiro/Flamco doctrine, which set strict requirements for partial nullification/maintenance of a patent, is also no longer applicable to Dutch patents since EPC 2000 came into force. The patent holder has the…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Netherlands, Novelty, Scope of protection

(Brinkhof)/

The District Court of The Hague holds the Dutch part of Eli Lilly’s olanzapine patent and SPC invalid because the substance olanzapine has been directly and unambiguously disclosed in a prior art document. According to the Court, the person skilled in the art will immediately recognize the error and the correction for this error in…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Enforcement, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

On 1 March 2010, Commercial Court number 1 of Pamplona handed down a judgement dismissing a declaratory non-infringement action filed by L.C. against N. The Court rejected the claim in its entirety, on the ground that L.C. lacked “locus standi”, as it was not L.C. but a third party who was supposedly to carry out…

Case Law, EPC, Sufficiency of disclosure

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In this case, the Board of Appeal had to decide whether a claim containing a feature for which the description contained erroneous figures only met the requirements of Article 83 EPC (sufficiency of disclosure) and Rule 27(1)(e) EPC 1973 (corresponding to Rule 42(1)(e) EPC 2000). The Board of Appeal decided that a patent application should…

Case Law, Employee invention

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The Supreme Court confirmed the Court of Appeal’s decision that the certification of the status of creator of a technical achievement is an indispensable condition for monetary compensation of an employee by an enterprise. Since the plaintiffs have not requested or received any documents recognizing their status as creators of a technical achievement, their claim…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Equivalents, Extent of Protection, Netherlands, Scope of protection

(Brinkhof)/

The District Court of The Hague holds that in case of ambiguities in the claim language the skilled man will consult the prosecution history to determine the scope of protection. The patent can not be construed in such manner that it would lack novelty over prior art from which the patent was explicitly delimited during…

Case Law, Extent of Protection, Injunction, Scope of protection, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

In this case the Commercial Court lifts an ex parte preliminary injunction against the launch of several generics of Pramipexol after an inter partes hearing. The ex parte decision was grounded on a Supplementary Protection Certificate based on a patent granted under the 1929 Patents Act. One of the claims of the patent was construed…