Infringement is unauthorized application of the claimed invention, e.g. by trading in a product that falls within the scope of the claims of a patent. Actively inducing, encouraging or materially contributing to the infringing activity may – in some jurisdictions – also constitute indirect infringement. Infringement by inducement and contributory infringement are two types of indirect patent infringement, recognized in the U.S. In Europe indirect infringement generally relates to the (offer to) supply a means essential to the invention.
(1) If a plaintiff can prove there was an “offering” of means for the patented purposes, it can be assumed that the means were also delivered for those purposes, and that therefore the plaintiff has a right to claim damages and the provision of information due to indirect infringement. (2) When a patent is assigned…
Under the legal principle of forfeiture of claims a patentee can deprive himself of claims for patent infringement if he asserts them in legal proceedings at such a late stage (time factor) that the infringer from an objective perspective could trust that he would not anymore be subjected to the claims and has made dispositions…
In its decision “Fahrradkurbeleinheit” (“bike crank assembly”) the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf has lifted an injunction by the Regional Court of Düsseldorf on appeal (OLG Düsseldorf, I-2 U 78/12, 20 June 2013). Contrary to the first instance the court did not find for patent infringement. Questions of literal and equivalent infringement have been discussed…
and Carissa Kendall-Palmer In HTC Corporation v Gemalto SA and HTC Corporation v Gemalto NV [2013] EWHC 1876 (Pat), Mr Justice Birss ruled upon the validity and infringement of two telecommunications patents concerning smart/chip card technology. The Claimant came to the High Court of England and Wales seeking revocation of the patents; the Defendant counterclaimed…
Introduction In my previous post of 2 August 2013 I made passing reference to the recent decision of the English Court of Appeal in the Copaxone litigation. This case was an appeal of the decision of Arnold J (previously reported here) where he found Yeda’s patent valid and infringed. With permission of the court, Mylan…
It could be argued that 2013 is proving to be somewhat unkind to UK patentees when it comes to the issues of sufficiency and priority. On 25 June 2013, in a typically comprehensive judgment running to some 90 pages, Arnold J held that Janssen’s patent was invalid for insufficiency. The relevant facts were as follows:…
The PI judge in the District Court of The Hague held that under certain circumstances, provisional cross-border jurisdiction can be derived from art. 31 Regulation (EC) 44/2001, which would require a “real connecting link” between the sought measures and the jurisdiction of a contracting state (ECJ C-391/95, Van Uden/Decoline). However, in the present case there…
The PI judge in the District Court of The Hague held that the processes used to manufacture the generic products in dispute did not fall within the invoked patents’ scope of protection, and particularly that these did not comprise equivalent measures, because the allegedly equivalent substances had significantly different chemical compositions and functionality. Finding the…
In its decision of 22 April*, the UK High Court (Mr Justice Arnold) has dismissed Nestec’s** claims that Dualit has infringed EP (UK) 2 103 236 (“the patent”) by supplying its own branded “NX Café Caps” coffee capsules which are compatible with Nestec’s Nespresso coffee machines, thus paving the way for new entrants into the…
The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) addressed some interesting questions on patents protecting methods relating to data in the decision “MPEG-2-Videosignalcodierung” (“MPEG-2 video signal encoding”), judgement of 21 August 2012, X ZR 33/10. This all was round up by explanations on patent exhaustion in the context of test purchases. In simple terms, the…
