In the past few years, the Barcelona Courts with jurisdiction over patent matters (Commercial Courts nos. 1, 4 and 5) have acted in close coordination with one another, e.g. holding joint deliberations of the three judges. Now, in a case where one of those Courts refused to join two separate infringement actions pending before Courts…
A recently published Decision of 9 November 2018 from Barcelona Commercial Court number 5 sheds some light on the indicia that may or may not be sufficient for the purposes of ordering a preliminary injunction “ex parte”. For the readers’ benefit, it will be useful to clarify that under Spanish law, one of the requirements…
In preliminary injunction proceedings, the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) ruled on the interpretation of the wording “protected by a basic patent” in Article 3.a) of the SPC Regulation, on the same facts decided by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales in the 2018 judgment in Teva v Gilead and, following…
During the 2018 Mobile World Congress (“MWC”), Barcelona Commercial Court number 1 ordered a preliminary injunction preventing a company that was taking part in the Congress from continuing to market mobile phones that allegedly used antennas protected by patents owned by the applicant. The defendant lodged an appeal before the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section…
The Supreme Court confirmed that an unregistered patent licensee did have legal standing to file an infringement action in Spain when it filed such action as co-claimant to the patent holder. Case date: 08 February 2017 Case number: ATS 735/2017 Court: Supreme Court of Spain, First Civil Law Chamber A full summary of this case has been published…
While the UK is holding its breath ahead of Parliament’s vote on the Brexit deal, many patent specialists think a ‘no deal’ will be a fatal blow for the UK’s ambition to stay in the Unitary Patent system. But according to Alfonso Sabán, attorney at law and political scientist in Madrid, it is obvious that,…
The Barcelona patent courts have provided further guidance on preliminary injunctions within the context of trade fairs, where the standard of evidence is higher than usual. Indirect evidence, such as an expert report based on a video of the competitor’s allegedly infringing machine, is generally not good enough. If the patentee lacks direct, “hands-on” evidence…
In a Judgment dated 26 July 2018, the influential Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) rejected an overly narrow, “literalistic” interpretation of a patent claim. A claim’s terms must be interpreted according to the meaning that a person skilled in the art would give them – even if it is not the most scientifically “puristic”…
Back in 1993, the President of Section 15 of the Barcelona Court of Appeal, Justice José Ramón Ferrándiz (now retired from the Supreme Court), fostered the specialisation of the different Sections of that Court to various areas of private law. It was then decided that Section 15 would be the only competent Section to resolve…
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…
