United Kingdom

Biologics, Covid-19, Inventive step, Plausibility, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/

On 8 October 2024, Mr Justice Meade handed down judgment in BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc., (together, BioNTech/Pfizer) v CureVac SE. Meade J found CureVac’s patents, relating to split poly(A) tails in mRNA, invalid for obviousness and insufficiency due to (i) lack of plausibility and (ii) because the purported technical effect does not in fact…

Damages, FRAND, Procedure, SEP, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/ /1 Comment

On 12 July 2024 the English Court of Appeal gave its second FRAND determination judgment, in the context of an appeal and cross-appeal of Mellor J’s first instance decision in IDC v Lenovo.  This decision continues the English Court’s theme, first developed in Unwired Planet, of taking a pragmatic approach to arriving at a set…

AI, Case Law, Exceptions to patentability, Patents, Technology, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/ /1 Comment

On 19 July 2024, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in Comptroller – General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks v Emotional Perception AI Limited [2024] EWCA Civ 825 following a hearing on 14-15 May 2024. The Court of Appeal judgment overturns the first instance decision of the High Court and upholds the…

Amendments, Case Law, Litigation, United Kingdom

, (Bristows)/

A recent decision from Joanna Smith J dealing with the costs of a withdrawn application in a case before the English Patents Court contains an important postscript and suggests that the rules in the Patents Court Guide regarding the lodging and filing of skeleton arguments need to be revisited. All English patent litigators, and many…

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, Case Law, FRAND, Litigation, Patents, SEP, United Kingdom

, (Bristows)/

On 15 July 2024, the High Court of England and Wales handed down its decision ([2024] EWHC 1815 (Ch)) in the jurisdiction challenge in Telsa’s case against InterDigital and Avanci which considers a request for declaratory relief in relation to the FRAND terms for a patent pool licence that includes SEPs owned by multiple proprietors. …

Biologics, Case Law, Covid-19, Damages, Infringement, Inventive step, Patents, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/ /1 Comment

Moderna secured a double victory in the Patents Court last week (2 July 2024) in proceedings against Pfizer and BioNTech.  In the first decision, Meade J found its modified mRNA patent to be valid and infringed by Pfizer and BioNTech’s “Comirnaty” vaccine.  In the second decision, Richards J rejected Pfizer and BioNTech’s defence based on…

Case Law, evidence, Infringement, Inventive step, Novelty, Patents, Pharmaceutical patent, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/

In his Abbott v Dexcom ([2024] EWHC 1664 (Pat)) judgment, published on 28 June 2024, Mr Justice Mellor was faced with the rather unenviable task of determining the approach of the Skilled Team when “due to their differing experiences and expertise” it was unclear if any of the experts were in a position to comment…

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, European Union, FRAND, Germany, Patents, SEP, Unitary Patent, United Kingdom, UPC

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /1 Comment

Following up on Thorsten’s blog post yesterday, I report on the second day of the Oxviews 9th Intellectual Property and Competition Forum, which took place in the Justizpalast in Munich on 19 June. This impressive building deserves the name Palast (in English “Palace”), and was a fitting venue for this meeting of thought leaders in…

(Indirect) infringement, FRAND, Infringement, Injunction, Procedure, SEP, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

On the 23 May 2024, the English Patents Court dismissed an application by Lenovo for an interim injunction to prevent Ericsson infringing one of Lenovo’s patents pending the outcome of the UK proceedings ([2024] EWHC 1267 (Ch)). In particular, the Court found that the application failed on the basis that damages are an adequate remedy…

Equivalents, Infringement, Inventive step, Litigation, Novelty, Patents, Pharma, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/ /2 Comments

Advanced Cell Diagnostics v Molecular Instruments [2024] EWHC 898 (Pat) On 23 April 2024, Mr Justice Meade handed down his judgment in the dispute between Advanced Cell Diagnostics (ACD) and Molecular Instruments (MI). ACD is the proprietor of two European patents which relate to in situ detection of nucleic acids in single cells.  EP (UK)…