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On 10 October 2018 the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in the matter of Icescape Limited v Ice-World International BV & Ors*. Three discrete issues were considered by the Court and, although the decision of the Lord Justices of Appeal ultimately did not change the effect of the first instance judgment, the opinions…
In China, a patent owner’s statements made during prosecution or invalidation may give rise to prosecution history estoppel (or prosecution disclaimer), which precludes the patent owner from recapturing subject matter that was relinquished during prosecution or invalidation in subsequent infringement actions. To invoke the doctrine of prosecution disclaimer, such statements must constitute a clear and…
This decision by the FCJ confirms that the cited prior art should, generally, provide concrete suggestions, hints or at least provide other reasons beyond the recognizability of the technical problem to seek the solution of a technical problem in the way presented in the patent. Case date: 23 May 2017 Case number: X ZR 90/15 Court: Federal Court…
The Federal Court of Justice held that the purpose of determining the technical problem (objective) in invalidity proceedings is to locate the starting point of skilled efforts to enrich the state of the art without knowledge of the invention, in order to assess, in the subsequent and separate examination of patentability, whether or not the…
A recurring topic of discussion in patent infringement proceedings in Spain is the degree of evidence required to prove the damage caused by acts of patent infringement. According to a line of case law handed down by the Supreme Court, the existence of the damage may be proved by demonstrating the existence of the unlawful…
In a case concerning two patents in the field of underwater mine clearance, the Court of Appeal upheld the Patents Court’s decision that claims 1 and 2 of the 576 Patent were invalid for obviousness, but allowed the appeal in relation to the validity of the 861 Patent, finding that the claims in question were…
Over the last few years, highly detailed discussions on patent validity have been a staple of Spanish preliminary injunction proceedings. The influential Barcelona Court of Appeal now clarifies that, while validity may be discussed, the analysis should not reach the same level of depth as in the main proceedings. Furthermore, a defendant wishing to object…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has vacated and remanded a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision that a reference guide qualified as a printed publication, in a case involving reexamination of medical device patents relating to access ports, asking for the Board to clarify its findings on this matter. Further, the…
The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal filed by Cubist against the Patents Court decision that one of its patents relating to antibiotic daptomycin was invalid for obviousness. The Court of Appeal was satisfied that the first instance Judge had an ample evidential basis to find the claimed invention obvious, his finding was properly reasoned…
Just a few months before the CJEU’s judgment in C-121/17 Teva UK Ltd and Others v Gilead Sciences Inc. came out a the Metropolitan Court of Budapest handed down a decision regarding Merck Sharp and Dohme Corp’s (MSD) application for an SPC re the combination of ezetimibe and rosuvastatin. The Hungarian court which regularly deals…
