Each time I hear “TRUVADA”, the catchy chorus of the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da sounds different to me… However, TV addicts or literature lovers also keen on pharmaceutical litigation should not have failed to notice a more disturbing coincidence: “Gilead” is moreover the sweet name given to the dictatorship where The Handmaid’s Tale is set –…

A recent judgment of 13 November 2020 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) has brought to the fore again the thorny topic of “indirect” or “contributory” infringement. The difficulty of the topic is illustrated, for example, by the fact that two very learned Judges (Judge Arnold, then in the first instance and Judge…

The German Bundesrat approved the Unified Patent Court Agreement and its Protocol on Provisional Application (PPA) earlier today, three weeks after its approval in the Bundestag. To complete the German ratification procedure, the bills will have to be signed by the government and Bundespräsident and published in the Federal Law Gazette. The completion of the…

Yesterday, the Dutch prime minister announced the Netherlands will be ‘locked down’ until mid-January. At the same time the author of this blog, part of a six member audience due to COVID restrictions, paid his last visit to the movies for many weeks to come. On the screen Tenet, a mishmash of Sci-Fi wannabe and…

On 4 December 2020, the English Patents Court handed down its decision in Neurim Pharmaceuticals (1991) Limited & Flynn Pharma Limited v Generics UK Limited (t/a Mylan) & Mylan UK Healthcare Limited, the main action proceedings regarding Neurim’s patent for Circadin™, EP 1 441 702 (“EP 702”).  The judgment is available here. Many readers will…

It is becoming clear that videoconferencing is inevitable in the long term for all oral proceedings at the EPO. The next generation of users of the system will expect a remote, distributed and technology-based process as a matter of course and, as indicated by the EPO’s recent Progress Report, the technology supports adoption of ViCo…

The Unwired case recently concluded by the UK Supreme Court is undoubtedly one of the most high-profile cases in European patent litigation in the last ten years [1]. Among other things, the judgment refers to French law to which it reserves a strange fate, a real legal “je t’aime moi non plus”. But, beforehand, a…

Parties should not be forced to accept oral proceedings via videoconference before the EPO Board of Appeals. That is the clear feedback, at least in the responses that have been published, on the EPO’s user consultation regarding a proposed new Article 15a RPBA concerning oral proceedings by videoconference. The consultation closed on 27 November. In…

The IP Law of Turkey prohibits any kind of amendment/limitation of claims or patent documents after the patent has been granted. The only exceptions to this rule are the amendment/limitations made by the patentee during the national post-grant opposition phase, which was introduced to Turkish law in 2017. As per the introduction of a national…

The UPC Preparatory Committee has reacted with enthusiasm to the approval in the German Bundestag of the ratification legislation for the Unified Patent Court Agreement. In an announcement on its website the Committee writes: “The goal of bringing the Unified Patent Court into operation moves an important step closer this evening with the news from…