by Gregory Bacon The English courts are not averse to determining disputes concerning foreign rights, including intellectual property rights. Readers will no doubt be aware of the recent case between Actavis and Eli Lilly in which Actavis sought declarations of non-infringement in relation to the UK and foreign designations of Eli Lilly’s European patent concerning…
Following the CJEU judgment Huawei vs ZTE (Case C-170/13) of 16 July 2015, the national courts continue refining the requirements for the assertion of standard-essential patents (SEPs). So far, the first instance courts in Germany (in particular in Duesseldorf, Mannheim and Munich) showed a tendency to apply the principles of the CJEU decision in a…
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…
