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The CoA Karlsruhe held that the fact that a referral is pending before the CJEU regarding the issues of the criteria for raising the FRAND defense (C-170/13 Huawei) does not justify the suspension of the enforcement of an infringement judgment issued against a defendant. The court also expressed their expectation that – even after a…
The German Bundesgerichtshof has issued a decision (X ZR 41/13) called “Quetiapin” which discusses a fundamental question of the Patent Law, i.e. the definition of the “technical problem” underlying an invention. The claim of the European Patent under discussion concerned a sustained release formulation. The Patent Court had nullified the (German part of the) patent…
by Anja Petersen-Padberg The Federal Court of Justice decided in the “Electric Kettle” case (25.06.2014, docket X ZR 72/13) that the placing of goods in transit proceedings does not infringe a patent right in Germany as the country of transit. The court stressed that it is of no relevance whether the goods were placed in…
In a surprise move, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development made a formal call last week on stakeholders to share their view as to what Italy should do with the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Unitary Patent (UP) system. Italy is the only European country which has signed the UPC Agreement, but has stayed out…
Pierre Véron is attorney-at-law at Véron & Associés, Paris, Honorary President of the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW), Member of the Drafting Committee of the Rules of Procedure and Member of the Expert Panel of the Unified Patent Court. On 10 January2015, Regulation (EU) № 542/2014 of 15 May 2014 entered into force simultaneously with Regulation (EU) № 1215/2012, the…
On February 13, 2015 the Eastern High Court of Denmark issued a decision in an appeal in interlocutory proceedings regarding an application for an interim injunction against the marketing and sale of generic medicines (birth-control pills) containing, inter alia, drospirenone. Bayer is the proprietor of two patents regarding a method for producing drospirenone. On June…
By Jan Lindberg and Kiira Lehtonen The recent judgement of the Finnish Market Court (MAO:18/15) given on January 16th provides further guidelines as to what is expect from a method to be patentable especially in relation to existing techniques, while also serving as a good reminder that arguments non-related to the actual subject-matter do not…
Introduction It used to be an excellent strategy to obtain patents on industry standards. The idea was rather simple: a patent covering an industry standard would mean that such a patent could be enforced against the entire industry. However, recent developments in the law on standard essential patents (“SEPs”) have called this strategy into question….
For those who thought that patent litigation was only relevant for big pharma or cutting-edge telecom devices, it may be of interest to learn about a relatively recent judgment from the Court of Appeal of A Coruña that has resolved a fierce dispute around patents protecting mollusc cleaning machines. A Coruña is one of the…
By Jan-Diederik Lindemans, Crowell & Moring 7 of the IP Enforcement Directive (measures for preserving evidence) was implemented in Belgium in Article 1369bis/1 et seq. of the Belgian Judicial Code. These ex parte proceedings, called (counterfeit) search and seizure proceedings, allow the competent Belgian court to grant the holder of an intellectual property right not…
