Despite uncertainty about the UK’s post-Brexit position in the Unitary Patent (UP) system and the German constitutional compliant against the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA), several steps leading towards UK ratification of the UPCA have been taken over the last weeks. The House of Commons approved the draft Unified Patent Court (Immunities and Privileges) Order…
Whilst many in show business have long lived by the adage “never work with children or animals” for fear of what might ensue, patent litigators in the UK have long been known to take a similar approach to experiments, avoiding them if at all possible for fear of the results. Indeed, Laddie J noted once…
Last year, Actavis, Teva and Mylan (“Actavis”) sought revocation in the English Patents Court of two patents relating to tadalafil, which is sold by Eli Lilly (“Lilly”) as the active ingredient in CIALIS® to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. As is the usual course, ICOS (the patentee) and Lilly (the exclusive licensee) subsequently…
All Union law arguments against the Unitary Patent system, that are now on the table again because of the German constitutional complaint, have already been rejected in the recent past. Wouter Pors, partner of Bird & Bird, has said this in an interview with Kluwer IP Law. Pors hopes the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) will…
When will the Unified Patent Court open its doors and the Unitary Patent (UP) become available? The German constitutional complaint against ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) has dashed expectations that the UP system could launch at the end of this year. Considerable delays and even the end of the system in its…
Patent lawyers in the UK have spent the last three months pondering, debating and at times indulging in an element of despair (to put it mildly) about what might be the impact of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Actavis v Eli Lilly [2017] UKSC 48 on issues of validity (see here). Today they…
Whilst ostensibly a standards essential patents dispute, there have now been two decisions from the English Courts in this case both on the construction of a licence agreement under Californian law. These two judgments have come before any substantive decisions on infringement or validity of the three patents asserted by Philips against Asus and HTC….
In paragraph 54 of its judgment of 12 July 2017, the UK Supreme Court wrote that “[…] notwithstanding what Lord Diplock said in Catnic [1982] RPC 183, 242, a problem of infringement is best approached by addressing two issues, each of which is to be considered through the eyes of the notional addressee of the…
UPDATE with quotes of the press conference of Michel Barnier at the bottom of this blogpost Will London’s pharmaceuticals and life sciences section of the Unified Patent Court have to be relocated post-Brexit? The EU will investigate this as part of the Brexit negotiations. This has been reported by ScienceBusiness.net. According to the website, the…
By Gregory Bacon Yes, you read that right. Thirteen years after the House of Lords had firmly shut the door on any notion of a doctrine extending the scope of patent protection outside the claims, the UK Supreme Court in yesterday’s judgment in Actavis v Eli Lilly [2017] UKSC 48 reversed gear and reintroduced a…
