On 9 October 2019, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the finding that a patent directed towards ceramic compounds was sufficient and allowed two procedural appeals on issues of liability. Anan Kasei and Rhodia (“Rhodia”) are respectively the proprietor and exclusive licensee of a patent for ceric oxide compounds for use in catalytic…

In most legal systems, preliminary injunctions in patent matters require the applicant to show that he would suffer an irreparable disadvantage without the approval of the requested preliminary injunction. In the different legal systems, there are different standards and requirements for the proof of irreparable harm. While some jurisdictions require a completely irreparable disadvantage, others…

As per Article 154 of the Turkish IP Law any person who has a legal interest can file an action to have the Court determine that his acts do not constitute an infringement of the intellectual property rights of a rights owner. For a quite long time patent owners were squeezed between conflicting approaches in…

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…

Declaratory-judgment actions of non-infringement are common in patent litigation because it allows the alleged infringer to proactively bring suit to resolve the situation and eliminate the cloud of uncertainty looming overhead. Under Chinese law, to bring a claim for declaratory judgment in a patent dispute, the claimant must establish that: (1) the patentee sends a…

The holder of a standard essential patent (SEP) should first notify the alleged infringer of the SEP, following which the alleged infringer should inform the patent holder of its willingness to take a licence. Then, said licence needs to be offered on FRAND terms. These steps are guidelines for good faith negotiations between the parties….

On 5 July 2019, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia (Full Court) handed down its judgment in the appeal and cross-appeal in Calidad Pty Ltd v Seiko Epson Corporation [2019] FCAFC 115.  The judgment considers in-depth the extent to which a patentee can: prevent those who have acquired title to a patented…

The Court of Appeal, overturning Birss J’s decision, decided that in the case of TQ Delta v ZyXEL, the answer was no. The facts of the case leading to this decision are somewhat unusual. TQ Delta asserted infringement of two patents declared essential to ITU-T standards. Following a trial in respect of liability, one of…

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…