The German ratification proceedings concerning the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA) have been formally started. According to German Rechtsanwalt Dr. Ingve Stjerna, the first hearing on the UPCA is planned to be held in the German Parliament on the evening (21:40) of 23 June 2016. Remarkably this is exactly the date that the Brexit referendum…
Let’s begin with the German statute and compare it with the EPC. Section 34 of the German Patent Act (GPA) stipulates the following: (3) An application shall contain: 1. the name of the applicant; 2. a request for the grant of a patent, in which the invention shall be clearly and concisely designated; 3. one…
by André Sabellek In a recent judgment the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe (OLG Karlsruhe) had to decide on the extent of the liability of a foreign supplier for a patent infringement in Germany (judgment of October 7, 2015, court docket: 6 U 7/14 – Abdichtsystem [sealing system]). In the present case, the defendant, an…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported on our other IP blogs, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with an overview of the top 3 most-read posts from each of our IP law blogs. Here are the top posts from last month. Top 3 Kluwer Patent Blog posts…
If conflicts arise under the Unitary Patent system, parties have the option to go to the Unified Patent Court (UPC), or they can agree to go the court’s Patent and Mediation Centre (PMAC). In their current version, the Rules on Arbitration and Mediation do not provide for the possibility of Judges of the UPC to…
In its decision of December 15, 2015 the Federal Court of Justice confirmed the judgment of the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court of 2014 concerning the direct infringement of use patents by manifest arrangement. In this case the defendants had manufactured insulation material made of glass fibres and sold it to the building industry in Germany….
Although patentability is generally regarded as a question of law per se, the actual technical disclosure of a prior art example was seen as a question of fact and therefore a matter for the first-instance court. The Federal Court of Justice saw itself bound to facts determined by the first-instance court, unless there are specific…
To ensure you don’t miss out on interesting IP law developments reported by our Trademark Law and Copyright Law bloggers, we will, on a regular basis, provide you with a top 3 overview. Top 3 Kluwer Trademark Blog posts in February 2016 1) Denmark: Citations of case law considered trademarks, by Lasse…
Two draft bills implementing the UPCA in the German legal system have recently been proposed by the German Ministry of Justice (BMJV) and shall be considered in the following. The first is the ratification law itself consisting of only three articles. The second one is a relatively complex draft bill mainly amending the German Act…
There has been some confusion in Germany as to whether exhibiting products and services on a trade show qualifies as an infringing act or not. Most prominently, two decisions of the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) have denied a general rule that any presentation of goods or services on a trade show justifies…
