United Kingdom

Litigation, Pharmaceutical patent, Plausibility, Second Medical Use, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

, (Bristows)/ /1 Comment

In undoubtedly one of the most important decisions of the year so far, on 24 August 2021, the English Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in FibroGen v Akebia (FibroGen Inc v Akebia Therapeutics Inc [2021] EWCA Civ 1279), partially allowing FibroGen’s appeal, and so finding one of the ‘Family A’ patents, EP 823,…

Case Law, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/ /1 Comment

As many Kluwer readers will know, the last 18 months have witnessed a changing of the guard within the English Patents Court with long-standing first instance judges Arnold and Birss JJ being promoted to the Court of Appeal and their shoes in the Patents Court being filled by the highly respected patent practitioners, Meade and…

Case Law, FRAND, SEP, United Kingdom

(City, University of London), (London School of Economics), and (Student, West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences)/ /4 Comments

Introduction The implementation of 4G mobile communication technology in the UK has become very expensive for Apple in light of the High Court of England and Wales’ decision last month in Optis v. Apple. The court held that Optis’s standard-essential patents (‘SEPs’) were infringed by Apple. The court added that it was willing to decide…

Case Law, Kluwer Patent Cases, Litigation, Patents, SEP, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

On 25 June 2021 Meade J handed down his decision in the second of a series of trials listed as part of the Optis v Apple UK action ([2021] EWHC 1739 (Pat); a link the judgment is here).  This decision concerned the validity and infringement of EP (UK) 2 229 744.  This patent had previously…

Case Law, Covid-19, Damages, Electrical Engineering, Enforcement, evidence, Infringement, Inventive step, Kluwer Patent Cases, Legal costs, Litigation, Patents, Procedure, United Kingdom

, (Bristows)/ /8 Comments

As many readers will already know, two new full-time Patents Judges have been appointed to the English Court in the last 9 months – Meade and Mellor JJ.  Despite the challenges that the global pandemic has brought, the English Patents Court has coped remarkably well and there has been no let-up in the progress of…

Case Law, FRAND, Kluwer Patent Cases, Litigation, Patents, Procedure, SEP, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

On Wednesday 16 June 2021, Mr Justice Mellor handed down his judgment in the second technical trial in the Mitsubishi & Sisvel v OnePlus & Xiaomi proceedings ([2021] EWHC 1639 (Pat)), holding that the patents in suit were valid and essential to the LTE standard. The proceedings had been brought in an attempt to persuade…

Case Law, Novelty, Public prior use, United Kingdom, Validity

(City, University of London) and (University School of Law and Legal Studies, New Delhi)/ /12 Comments

On 22 April 2021 the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) gave a judgement in Claydon Yield-O-Meter v Mzuri, a UK case on patent invalidity because of prior disclosure. As is known, in order for an invention to be considered new under Section 2(2) of the UK’s Patents Act 1977, it must not form part of…

Case Law, FRAND, SEP, United Kingdom

(OxFirst)/

In the aftermath of the landmark decision ‘Unwired Planet vs Huawei’, a series of other FRAND litigations have followed suit. Cases such as Conversant vs ZTE/Huawei, Philips vs TCL, TQ Delta v ZyXel or Optis v Apple pertain equally to the licensing of standard essential patents. From an economic perspective this raises the question as…

EPO, EPO Decision, Legal costs, Patents, Revocation, United Kingdom

, (Bristows)/

Although the case relates to treatments for insomnia, we suspect that the latest episode in the ongoing saga between Neurim and Mylan might result in a few sleepless nights for patent litigators. Somewhat unconventionally, the latest instalment saw Marcus Smith J vary a costs order so as to award costs to the losing party in…

Damages, Infringement, Kluwer Patent Cases, Litigation, Patents, TRIPS, TRIPs Agreement, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

Normal service looks to have been resumed following the Court of Appeal judgment in IPCom v Vodafone [2021] EWCA Civ 205, in which Arnold LJ reversed a first instance finding by Recorder Douglas Campbell QC that Vodafone was entitled to a defence of Crown use in respect of certain acts which infringed an IPCom patent,…