Everything flows, and the Dutch cross-border injunction flows like no other. From its source in the The Hague all the way to the cradle of Europe: Greece. So decided the Dutch Courts in the Novartis vs. Pharmathen case. The willingness of the Dutch Courts to assume jurisdiction to grant cross-border relief in international patent cases…

Introduction In a ruling by Hacon HHJ on 4 July 2022, [here] the English Patents Court has invalidated three patents belonging to J. C. Bamford (JCB) while finding a fourth valid and infringed by Manitou UK Ltd and its parent company Manitou BF (Manitou).  The judgment followed a six-day trial in November last year. Parallel…

This short post reports on one of the Panel Sessions at this year’s AIPPI Congress which took place virtually for the second year in a row. The tenth panel session of the AIPPI Online World Congress 2021 addressed global FRAND determinations by national courts and out-of-jurisdiction judgments in the form of anti-suit and anti-anti-suit injunctions….

The German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) confirmed that for setting the value in dispute of nullity actions on standard essential patents (SEPs) the well-established general rule applies, i.e. in the absence of special circumstances the value is 125% of the value of the infringement action(s) on the same patent (Order of May 11, 2021,…

As reported in last week’s post, on 20 January 2021 Birss J handed down what may be his last first instance decision before his elevation to the Court of Appeal.  The first post on the judgment considered the issues of identifying the skilled person, insufficiency and infringement.  This second part considers the decision relating to…

On 20 January 2021 Birss J handed down what may be his last first instance decision before he takes his place in the Court of Appeal.  If that turns out to the case then Illumina Cambridge Limited v Latvia MGI Tech SIA and others is a substantial judgment to mark this departure.  In this case…

A recent judgment of 13 November 2020 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) has brought to the fore again the thorny topic of “indirect” or “contributory” infringement. The difficulty of the topic is illustrated, for example, by the fact that two very learned Judges (Judge Arnold, then in the first instance and Judge…

In his (or her) younger years at school, a once to be Dutch patent litigator was learned that the Netherlands share a borders with Germany and Belgium. On the geography maps, they seemed to be set in stone. History class already provided a different perspective: now friendly neighbours would once surprise each other with unannounced…

The Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice, BGH) clarified the scope and limits of a prior use right of a manufacturer and supplier of components of a patented device (BGH, judgment of 14 May 2019, X ZR 95/18 – Schutzverkleidung). Under German patent law, a patent has no effect with respect to a party who…

Pemetrexed, yet again: last Wednesday the District Court of The Hague, swimming against the current and after a deep dive in the prosecution file, decided that Fresenius did not infringe Eli Lilly’s ‘pemetrexed disodium’ patent with a generic product that does not contain pemetrexed disodium, not even by equivalence. The basic facts of the widespread…