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On 28 March 2018, the Australian Government introduced the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2018 in the House of Representatives. This follows IP Australia’s public consultation in October 2017 of an exposure draft of amendments for Australia’s IP laws that included, among other matters, a mechanism to phase out the…
The new Spanish Patent Act, which came into force on 1 April 2017, introduced numerous improvements aimed at modernising an old and archaic patent system that needed a total reform. One of the aspects introduced by the new Act is the possibility of limiting the patent before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, after it…
The Unitary Patent (UP) package becoming a reality would be a great step forward for Europe. Intellectual property, and patents in particular, is a key ingredient in innovation systems. However, more political efforts will be needed to build a truly European system which supports innovation dynamics. And the European Patent Office (EPO) should probably be…
…clearly less spectacular than the UK’s ratification of the UPCA, but nevertheless noteworthy and – perhaps! – even more relevant in the long run (but that we shall see). My colleague Mike Gruber was kind enough to compile the following brief summary of the Federal Patent Court’s full decision on the Raltegravir (Isentress®) compulsory license…
At last the doubters have been proven wrong. The UK has ratified the UPC Agreement. The news was announced this afternoon by IP Minister, Sam Gyimah MP, at an IP Awareness Network event at the House of Commons Terrace to celebrate World IP Day, and we can expect to see this ratification recorded tomorrow…
The UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The Minister for Intellectual Property, Sam Gyimah MP, confirmed this today. As was announced in a government press release: ‘Ratification brings the international court one step closer to reality. The Agreement on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is an international treaty. The international court will have jurisdiction over patent…
Yesterday, 25 April 2018, AG Wathelet has handed down his opinion in the Teva v Gilead reference (Case C-121/17) suggesting that the question should be answered as follows: “The fact that a substance or combination of substances falls within the scope of protection of the basic patent is a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement for…
Suppose you are a (patent) attorney in a pharmaceutical company and want to advise your company how to best protect the results of a clinical trial designed to find out the best possible treatment regimen of a certain known and approved drug X. The researchers of your company have devised and been allowed to conduct…
In an extraordinary appeal pursuant to Sec. 321a of the German Civil Procedure Code, the FCJ confirmed that the courts are obliged to take note of and consider the actual and legal submissions of the parties to the proceedings. The constitutionally guaranteed right to be heard (Art. 103 para. 1 Basic Law) is intended to…
The federal district court in Chicago did not err in dismissing a patent infringement suit filed by Maxon, LLC against several smart television manufacturers on the ground that the asserted patents—describing an electronic means of increasing user control over subscription entertainment content for smart TVs—were invalid as directed to an abstract idea that lacked an…
