Damages can be awarded if a patent has been infringed. Under U.S. law a patentee is entitled to damages adequate to compensate for any infringement and that compensation cannot be less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the invention by the infringer. Enhanced patent damages are appropriate to punish an infringer’s egregious, deliberate, or flagrant patent infringement. In Europe the scope of damages awarded for patent infringement and the process of how they are awarded varies between the different European states. In general a patent holder can claim the profits of the infringer or remuneration of its own lost profits (e.g. calculated in the form of a a reasonable license fee).
The High Court considered the extent to which a claim for damages in a patent infringement case could be extended at the damages inquiry stage. It found that whilst it is just and convenient to extend the inquiry to infringing acts of the same type as that on which the Court in the main action…
By decision of 5 April 2012, no. 5497, the Italian Supreme Court resolved an interesting case concerning the application of Article 68 (3) Italian IP Code, according to which “Whoever, in the course of 12 months preceding the filing date of the patent application or its priority date, has made use of the invention in…
At the beginning of this year, the German Federal Court of Justice (“FCJ”) rendered in “Tintenpatrone II” (“Ink Cartridge II”) (Docket No. X ZR 94/10) a decision of interest concerning the relation of patentee and exclusive licensee with regard to the claim of damages, following it decisions “Ink Cartridge I” and “Cinch-Plug”. Plaintiff (1) is…
In ResQNet.com, Inc. v. Lansa, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2010), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that patent litigation settlement agreements can be relevant in a different proceeding to the issue of the reasonable royalties that may be owed by a different infringer of the same patent(s). Last week, in In re…
Mr X was ordered to pay damages for the infringement of a French patent No. 87‑03865, relating to a massage device, by a decision of the Cour d’Appel of Limoges on 10 September 2001. In the absence of an appeal on a point of law, this decision became irrevocable. However, in a separate action, the same patent was subsequently…
Laboratoires Negma (hereinafter referred to as “Negma”) is the exclusive licensee of European patent No. 0 520 414 which relates to a method for the preparation of diacetylrhein (also called diacerein) having a specific degree of purity as well as diacetylrhein obtained by this process and a pharmaceutical composition containing this compound. Such European patent was first filed…
by Stephan Lieck The Düsseldorf Regional Court had to decide whether it is misleading under competition law that the former proprietor of a patent advertises with the fact that there is patent protection for a product (wrongful representation of an article as patent-ed/arrogation of patent), although the patent had expired at the time of arrogation…
The German company Hewlett-Packard GmbH (hereinafter referred to as Hewlett-Packard) was granted on 31 March 1993 the European patent EP 0 309 596, entitled “pumping apparatus for delivering liquid at high pressure”. Under an assignment contract dated 29 October 1999, registered in the French Patent Register on 21 August 2000, the German company Agilent Technologies Deutschland GmbH (hereinafter referred to as Agilent) became the…
The Swedish Supreme Court held that in cases where the infringing act is the sale of infringing goods, the damage (in this case the right to reasonable compensation for use of the invention and compensation for loss of profit) occurs as of the date a sales agreement is entered into, and the 5-year statute of…
Imagine: Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have one single patent which you could apply for at the WPO, the World Patent Office? A World Patent, which would be valid worldwide and which could be enforced in each single country of the world with worldwide effect? Decisions of the national local chambers of the World Patent…
