The UK Government issued guidance today on patent issues to allow businesses and citizens to understand what to do in a ‘no Brexit deal’ scenario. The so-called Technical Notice includes information about the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court, and explains that it is unclear whether the UP system will start before the Brexit date of 29…

The patent world is holding its breath in expectation of the judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) on the complaint that was filed last year against ratification of the UPCA. The judgment is even more crucial as the UK is preparing for Brexit and once it has left the European Union, this will…

A recent study by two eminent scholars from the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (MPI) on „The Impact of Brexit on Unitary Patent Protection and its Court“, which is available here, casts significant doubts whether it will be possible for the United Kingdom to stay in the UPC Agreement after the UK has…

Following the Court of Appeal’s decision that two of Regeneron’s patents were valid and infringed, it refused to grant Kymab permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, but held that the injunction against Kymab should be stayed, subject to certain conditions, whilst Kymab applied directly to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal. The Court…

The Court of Appeal overturned the Patents Court decision to strike out Glaxo Group’s (GSK’s) claim for an Arrow declaration in proceedings concerning a number of patents relating to dry powder inhaler formulations used in the treatment of respiratory diseases.  The Court of Appeal held that GSK’s claim for an Arrow declaration was sufficiently realistic…

The Court ordered a twelve month stay of the injunction granted when it found one of Boston’s patents concerning a transcatheter heart valve (THV) valid and infringed by Edwards’ medical device, in order to allow for the re-training of clinicians to use non-infringing THVs. The Court also held that, even after that stay, the injunction…

The United Kingdom wants to stay in the Unitary Patent system post-Brexit. This has been confirmed in the UK’s Brexit White Paper, which was published today. According to article 151 of the paper, ‘The UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement and intends to explore staying in the Court and unitary patent system after…

On 12 July 2017, the UK Supreme Court handed down a ruling which caused a shockwave to resound across the UK patent community. For more than a decade, when addressing the issue of the construction and infringement of a patent, every practitioner would have focussed on the question prescribed by Lord Hoffmann in Kirin Amgen:…

The Supreme Court concluded that it was appropriate for it to reformulate the so-called Improver (or ‘Protocol’) questions, which provide guidance as to whether a variant is immaterial where there is no literal infringement. The significant change is the introduction of hindsight into the determination of the second question: “Would it be obvious to the…