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.
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…
In our post on 30 October 2012 we referred to forthcoming appeals dealing with how the question of obviousness should be tackled by the English courts. The Court of Appeal has now given its verdict in several judgments. The latest decision in Regeneron v Genentech dealt not only with the question of obviousness but also…
The Court of Appeal of Liège confirmed the President of the Commercial Court’s finding that the appellant had committed patent infringement, and ordered the reimbursement of costs of the saisie-contrefaçon (seizure of evidence), which were not considered damages but as procedural costs. Click here for the full text of this case. A summary of this case…
The French saisie-contrefaçon is known to be an extremely powerful and effective tool to collect evidence of infringement of a patent (as of any other intellectual property right, see “Saisie-contrefaçon” on Wikipedia and also P. Véron et alii, Saisie-contrefaçon, Paris, Dalloz Action, 3rd ed. 2013-2014). It is a procedure that allows to request and obtain from…
On 15 January 2013, the French Cour de cassation, in the litigation between the Novartis companies and the Actavis companies about valsartan, drew the consequences of the 9 February 2012 order rendered by the CJEU in the frame of a parallel litigation in the United Kingdom. As already explained in a previous post, the company governed by the laws…
The Helsinki Court of Appeal granted Lundbeck preliminary relief against Sandoz. The Court held in the light of Article 34 TRIPS that in preliminary relief cases the standard of proof of infringement may not be too high if the patent in suit is a process patent for the manufacture of a new product, and therefore…
The Helsinki Court of Appeal found that ratiopharm had infringed Merck’s supplementary protection certificate covering losartan. The Court applied the reversed burden of proof of the Patents Act, which has its basis on Article 34 of the TRIPS Agreement. It further considered that, in the absence of proof to the contrary, the active ingredient losartan…
The Court held that the marketing of coffee capsules suitable for a Nespresso machine does not infringe the patent on an extraction system for the coffee capsules. Instead, the user of the machine is also permitted to use capsules which are not marketed by the patent holder. This is at least the case if the…
Faithfully implementing Article 9 §4 of Directive No. 2004/48/EC, Arti-cle L. 615–3 of the French Intellectual Property Code (hereinafter referred to as “IPC”) authorizes French courts to grant an interim injunction order after an inter partes proceedings (before the Judge ruling in preliminary proceedings) but also after an ex parte proceedings. As required by the EC Directive, the ex parte…
by Bernward Zollner In a case called “Produktionsrückstandsentsorgung” the German Bundesgerichtshof has discussed a case in which the claim of the litigious patent had been amended and narrowed with respect to the scope of protection after the judgment of the appeal court had been handed down. The appeal court therefore, could not have discussed the…
