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Among other things, the EPO’s official vision also includes to set world-wide standards in efficiency, so let us look into this goal a bit more closely. To begin with, what is efficiency? Wikipedia defines it as follows: Efficiency is the extent to which time or effort is well used for the intended task or purpose….
While the patent world is waiting with anxiety what the German Federal Constitutional Court will do with the challenge of the legal basis of the Unified Patent Court Agreement, the man behind this complaint, Düsseldorf patent attorney Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna has attacked the economic foundation of the UP system in a recent article on…
In its judgment of 7 November 2017, X ZR 63/15 – Digitales Buch, the German FCJ (Bundesgerichtshof) took the opportunity to complete its Kommunikationskanal case law on the admissibility of a generalisation of a teaching in patent claims by the omission of specific features that have been taught in the examples of the patent application….
Around this time last year, in Edwards Lifesciences v Boston Scientific [2017], His Honour Judge Hacon (sitting as a High Court Judge) had the opportunity to analyse two interesting aspects of UK patent law: (i) the law of implied disclosures and anticipation; and (ii) the importance of so-called secondary evidence in the evaluation of inventive…
The French National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) has just dispelled doubts by means of an official statement( https://www.inpi.fr/fr/nationales/communique-relatif-au-calcul-de-la-date-d-expiration-des-certificats-complementaires-de-protection ) it is now possible for holders of a supplementary protection certificate (SPC), issued in France before October 6, 2015, to require extension of their protection duration. The conditions are simple: (1) the SPC shall still be in…
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board correctly determined that all 79 claims of a patent related to a computerized method for identifying and substituting information in an electronic document were invalid for obviousness, the Federal Circuit has held. Although the Board erred in its analysis by declining to apply a prosecution disclaimer limiting the patent’s…
Abstract This will be a very long post (sorry, dear readers!), yet it cannot and will not be comprehensive enough to cover all aspects of this topic. In summary, my take on EPO quality is that not all is bad and a lot of people are still doing a good job. However, it is presently…
The Constitutional Court of Portugal held that mandatory arbitration can invalidate inter partes a pharmaceutical patent where the issue is raised incidenter tantum. Case date: 24 May 2017 Case number: 297/16 Court: Constitutional Court of Portugal A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law
This case concerns the issue of the urgency required in order to justify a preliminary injunction for patent infringement. The CoA Düsseldorf had to deal with the question of whether the Petitioner may wait for the outcome of a pending invalidation action before filing a motion for a preliminary injunction. The CoA Düsseldorf confirmed that…
A crucial period is ahead for the Unitary Patent (UP) system. In the UK, all legislative steps required to ratify the UPC Agreement have been completed and formal ratification could take place around Easter, if the government gives the go-ahead in the midst of the Brexit turmoil. In Germany, a decision is expected this year…
