The extent or scope of the protection conferred by a European patent or a European patent application shall – cf. Article 69 European Patent Convention – be determined by the claims. Nevertheless, the description and drawings shall be used to interpret the claims.
By Legislative Decree no. 131 of 13 August 2010, which became effective on 2 September 2010, the Italian legislator passed a number of amendments to the Italian IP Code. One of these is new Art. 68 (1bis) on the statutory limitations to patent rights (which in paragraph 1 already included, and still includes, personal use,…
By decision of 9 June 2010, the Italian Supreme Court tackled the issue of patent exhaustion in a manner which may give rise to some debate. The case concerned a claim of infringement brought by Bavelloni, an Italian manufacturer of machines for glass processing, against competitor Bottero which had exhibited in a trade fair a…
The Court of Appeal held that AGA’s patent was not infringed by Occlutech in a case of septal occlusion devices, which feature braided metal strands and have a collapsed configuration for delivery through a channel in a patient’s body.Occlutech’s devices, which feature strands that are welded at one end of the device were found to…
The Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris in its 28 May 2010 decision, Institut Pasteur v Société Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, illustrates the specificity of the French doctrine of equivalents, rejecting the “file wrapper estoppel” theory as it is known in the US. However, since it applies the doctrine of equivalents although the function of the claimed means is not novel, this decision does not seem to be in line with the majority of decisions rendered on that item.
By a decision of 20 May 2009, the Italian Supreme Court clarified the limits of the so called pharmacy exception contemplated by Italian patent law, according to which the extemporaneous preparation by the pharmacist of units of a drug, based on a medical prescription, using a patented active substance, does not result in patent infringement….
On 22 June 2010, the English Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in yet another case involving stents in Occlutech v. AGA Medical. The appeal was dismissed with the result that AGA’s patent was held not infringed by Occlutech. The decision itself is interesting for three reasons: First, and most importantly, the decision contains…
George Washington once speculated whether it could be said that an axe which had received three new handles and two new heads could be said to be the original axe. Whilst not providing the answer to this long-standing paradox, the recent judgment of Floyd J. in Schütz v Werit [2010] EWHC 660 does provide an…
On 18 June 2009 the IP Chamber of the Milan Court issued its official interpretation on whether the filing of an MA application for a generic drug when the patent is still in force results an act of infringement. This subject that had already been dealt with, with a different outcome, almost three years earlier…
The Austrian Supreme Court decided that a patent owner is free to base an infringement action on a limited version of its claims, irrespectively of initiating formal limitation proceedings. An application for cost reimbursement by the Main Association of the Austrian Social Insurance Institutions, which contained a declaration of the price and the availability of…
The District Court of The Hague holds that in case of ambiguities in the claim language the skilled man will consult the prosecution history to determine the scope of protection. The patent can not be construed in such manner that it would lack novelty over prior art from which the patent was explicitly delimited during…
