European Union

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, European Union, FRAND, Germany, Patents, SEP, Unitary Patent, United Kingdom, UPC

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /1 Comment

Following up on Thorsten’s blog post yesterday, I report on the second day of the Oxviews 9th Intellectual Property and Competition Forum, which took place in the Justizpalast in Munich on 19 June. This impressive building deserves the name Palast (in English “Palace”), and was a fitting venue for this meeting of thought leaders in…

European Union, Patents, TRIPS, TRIPs Agreement

(Clifford Chance)/

As most readers will be well aware, one of the hottest topics in the patent world is the broadening of the Bolar provision envisaged in the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Union code relating to medicinal products for human use, and repealing Directive 2001/83/EC and Directive…

EPO, European Union, Unitary Patent, UPC

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /9 Comments

There are now three interesting developments, albeit in quite different areas, which have in common the effort to avoid stepping on banana skins on the path towards a more unified patent system. The first one, published last week, was a decision by the Court of Appeal (CoA) itself, which took the opportunity to clarify that…

Case Law, European Union, UPC

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

In a revocation action the patent may be amended by the patent proprietor. According to Rule 30 RoP this should be done with an application; for subsequent amendments the explicit approval of the court should be sought. In the present case the patent proprietor tried to introduce amendments that had also been filed in another…

Case Law, European Union, UPC

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /1 Comment

In accordance with the principles of procedural economy and cost efficiency as well as a fair balance between the legitimate interests of the parties, which must be considered in the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure pursuant to Article 41(3) UPCA, the proceedings are not required to be stayed under Rule 311.1, first sentence RoP,…

European Union, United States of America, UPC

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The Court of Appeal of the Unified Patent Court has overturned the preliminary injunction issued by the Munich local division against NanoString in its conflict with US biotech company 10xGenomics. The court cited substantial concerns about the invalidity of the asserted claim of 10xGenomics’ European Patent 4108782 B1, noting that “on the balance of probability…

European Union, FRAND, SEP

, , , (De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek)/ /2 Comments

The proposal of the European Commission on the Regulation of SEP’s (the “Proposal“) has elicited criticism from various sides, including patent attorneys and lawyers, law professors, the government of the Netherlands and Finland, prominent UPC judges (see here and here), the president of the EPO and leading SEP holders (such as Nokia and Qualcomm). The…

CJEU, European Union, Unitary Patent, UPC

(Bottega Di Bella)/ /5 Comments

This piece deals with the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), addresses key concerns about the risk of unenforceability of PMAC arbitral awards, and proposes three implementable solutions. Competence and Enforcement of UPC and PMAC final decisions The PMAC, established by Article 35 UPC Agreement, can administer mediation and…

European Union, UPC

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The extent of the problems with the content management system took the Unified Patent Court by surprise. Alexander Ramsay, registrar of the Court and former chairman of the UPC’s preparatory committee, has said this in an interview with Kluwer IP Law. According to Ramsay, the court is working hard and spending a lot of resources…