My eminent colleague Pierre Véron, who needs no introduction here, is the author of a recent survey on the ranking of European jurisdictions in terms of damages awarded over the period 2000-2019 [1]The full version was published in English in Festschrift for President Meier-Beck in the journal GRUR (GRUR 2/2021)., which particularly caught my attention…

Recruitment of judges and top officials of the Unified Patent Court, training of staff and work on the CMS are some of the tasks that lay ahead now that the Period of Provisional Application of the UPC is approaching. Alexander Ramsay, chairman of the UPC Preparatory Committee, has said this in an interview with Kluwer…

The Unified Patent Court will open its doors for cases around mid-2022. That is the expectation of the UPC Preparatory Committee, which has published a time plan for the Provisional Application Period (PAP) and start of the UPC today. According to the plan, the PAP will have to be approximately eight months “to conclude all the work…

The legislation which enables Germany to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement has entered into force. It was published in the Federal Law Gazette on Thursday 12 August 2021 and came into force a day later. The development follows the dismissal, last month by the German constitutional court, of two requests for an interim injunction against…

Almost ten months after India and South Africa sparked the debate on the protection of intellectual property rights with the TRIPS COVID-19 Waiver (IP/C/W/669), there is still no consensus at the TRIPS Council in favour of any action. Despite the support of numerous other WTO Members, including the United States, the TRIPS COVID-19 Waiver still…

After a delay of almost four years, the route to German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement has been reopened by the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of 23 June 2021, which was published yesterday. The FCC’s rejection of two applications for an interim injunction against the UPCA ratification bills means the German…

We are happy to announce the new International Law Talk Podcast episode on EU competition law developments in the pharmaceutical sector. And this one is twice as good! Not only are we discussing both competition and IP issues, but I also interviewed two leading experts in the field: Michael Clancy and David Hull from Van…

In an earlier post we considered the general licensing and evaluation issues raised by a report issued in January 2021 by the EU Group of Experts on Standard Essential Patents (EU SEPs Expert Group). The present comment focuses on the transparency aspects highlighted by the Expert Group’s report. Transparency of Declarations In an ideal world…

The report issued in January 2021 by the EU Group of Experts on Licensing and Valuation of Standard Essential Patents (EU SEPs Expert Group) was long-anticipated and followed two years of debate and discussion within the group. The published document is very long and wide-ranging (229 pages). Given the scope of the report, it certainly…