Case reported and summarised by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP Mr Justice Carr has issued an interesting interim judgment regarding the jurisdiction of the English Court to grant negative declarations in relation to patent applications before the EPO (Fujifilm Kyowa Biologics v Abbvie Biotechnology [2016] EWHC 425 (Pat)). The case concerns an application by Fujifilm Kyowa…
The most sensible option for the UK is to postpone the ratification of the UPC Agreement until the ‘Brexit’ referendum of 23 June 2016 has been held, according to Luke McDonagh, Lecturer in IP Law at City University London. Mc Donagh told Kluwer IP Law there is nervousness in the ‘very pro-EU IP Community in…
The Court of Appeal denied Actavis’ claim for declarations of non-infringement in respect of several national designations of Eli Lilly’s European Patent. Whilst agreeing with the High Court that the national designations in suit were not directly infringed, it, nevertheless, overturned the prior decision on the basis of there being indirect (contributory) infringement. The Court…
Case reported and summarized by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP Mr Justice Carr is only a few months into his judicial career, but having already provided welcome guidance on the role of plausibility in considering both the questions of inventive step and sufficiency (see earlier blog post on Actavis v Eli Lilly), he has now produced…
A recent decision at the UK Intellectual Property Office emphasises again how important it is to establish ownership of rights in inventions (particularly before the first patent application is filed) and to have documentary evidence to support this. The case concerns a dispute between the University of Warwick and one of its employees over the…
Meredith Wilson famously wrote in 1951 that it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well, the various versions of this song by Crosby, Mathis, Bublé, Minogue et al may be on a near constant loop on the radio but in all honesty, with the daffodils out and the trees in full bud, it’s…
Mr Justice Carr has only been sitting as a full time judge for just over a month and yet in his decision of 16 November 2015, he has already produced what this author considers to be a sensible, but thought-provoking judgment that is readable and comparatively concise. The case involved a challenge by the well-known…
On 13 October 2015, the Law Commission of the United Kingdom published the final report of the project to reform the law of unjustified (groundless) threats. The report is the culmination of years of work, which started in 2012. After a consultation round, a report was published in 2014 and 18 recommendations for reform were…
Secessionist pressure grows in Catalonia, after regional elections on 27 September 2015 (qualified as an informal referendum on independence) were won by supporters of an independent Catalonia. In Scotland supporters of independence have been far from silenced since they lost a referendum on the same issue last year. Kluwer IP Law found the following article…
With the Judges mostly on summer vacation, August and September have given some time for reflection on several decisions from the Patents Courts in July. One of those decisions was another defeat for Rovi against Virgin from the Court of Appeal in Rovi v Virgin [2015] EWCA Civ 781. Floyd LJ. gave the leading judgment…
