by Bernward Zollner In a recent judgment announced on 27 October 2015 the German Bundesgerichtshof has issued a judgment which concerns joint nullity actions (X ZR 11/13 – Fugenband). Two nullity-plaintiffs had filed nullity actions at the German Bundespatentgericht seeking to nullify a patent. The German Bundespatentgericht had completely dis-missed both nullity actions. Against this…
The Federal Ministry of Justice of Germany has presented a first draft bill on the ratification of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement. It is accompanied by a draft bill to implement the Unitary Patent (UP) system at the national level. A spokesman of the German Ministry of Justice explained to Kluwer IP Law that…
A recent decision by the German Federal Court of Justice (Polyesterabmischungen, X ZR 90/11) relating to a patent concerning polyester resin blends may be instructive to demonstrate how an experimental report reproducing a prior art test instruction can be helpful to a nullity plaintiff, even if the description in the prior art document is incomplete…
The Federal Court of Justice held that claim construction has absolute priority before issues of invalidity, such as the inadmissible extension or issues of patentability of the subject matter, can be discussed. The Court also reiterated that the determination of the subject matter of a patent (the invention) cannot be abandoned with the mere reason…
In one of the most highly observed patent cases in Europe in 2015, Case C-170/13, Huawei vs ZTE, the Court of Justice of the European Union with judgment of 16 July 2015 provided valuable and long-awaited guidance on the antitrust/FRAND defense in cases of standard essential patents (SEPs). The decision at the same time raised…
A new decision by the German Federal Court of Justice (X ZR 112/13 – Teilreflektierende Folie) provides another illustrative example of the FCJ’s fairly generous and applicant-friendly case law on the allowability of amendments and priority. The patent at stake was a European Patent directed to the use of an image projector, a reflective surface…
by Miriam Büttner In a recent decision the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (OLG Düsseldorf) had to deal with the right to sue of exclusive licensees (judgment of 24 September 2015, docket no. I-2 U 30/15). https://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/olgs/duesseldorf/j2015/I_2_U_30_15_Urteil_20150924.html Background of the case was the request of an exclusive licensee for a preliminary in-junction against an alleged…
…well not really, but the German Federal Court of Justice has recently issued a decision (Kreuzgestänge, X ZR 103/13) that may expose Germany’s “Bifurcation System” to even more questions and criticism than in the past. Bifurcation is a term probably originating from geography and generally means “splitting of a main body into two parts”. An…
Dr. Simon Klopschinski In a recent judgment the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH) decided on the question of whether the infringement court is bound by an interpretation of the patent in suit the BGH has rendered in a nullity action concerning the same patent (judgment of June 2, 2015, court docket: X ZR…
The Court held that a certain means does not relate to an essential element of the invention just because it is used for a step in the method preceding the patented steps of the method. Even where this is necessary in order to apply the method, no contributory infringement of the patent can be established….
