Actions which impinge upon the monopoly granted by an Intellectual Property right are considered infringements.
In a Judgment dated 26 July 2018, the influential Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) rejected an overly narrow, “literalistic” interpretation of a patent claim. A claim’s terms must be interpreted according to the meaning that a person skilled in the art would give them – even if it is not the most scientifically “puristic”…
The Court confirmed that a District court, not specialised in patent matters, does have relative jurisdiction to decide a motion to produce exhibits for determining patent infringement. In order to positively decide a motion to produce exhibits, (threat of) infringement should be made plausible, but the threshold for plausibility is relatively low. Further, technical details…
Over the past few years the pan-European and parallel national patent litigation based on Eli Lilly’s pemetrexed patent has attracted considerable attention, as it has resulted in a number of diverse land mark decisions in relation to the doctrine of equivalence, as evidenced by the various posts on the Kluwer Patent Blog. By way of…
Today, after nine months of waiting, the decision of the UK Supreme Court in the pregabalin litigation was handed down. Like Brexit and the nation, it is clear that the Supreme Court Judges were divided on several crucial issues. In this post, we will not attempt to give a detailed analysis of the decision but…
The Swiss Patent Office issued a brief notice regarding a change of practice in the granting of supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) as well as corresponding detailed information on 22 October 2018. Following the Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s judgment 4A_576/2017 of 11 June 2018 relating to the SPC for Truvada, the requirement under Article 140b(1)(a) Swiss…
On 10 October 2018 the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in the matter of Icescape Limited v Ice-World International BV & Ors*. Three discrete issues were considered by the Court and, although the decision of the Lord Justices of Appeal ultimately did not change the effect of the first instance judgment, the opinions…
In China, a patent owner’s statements made during prosecution or invalidation may give rise to prosecution history estoppel (or prosecution disclaimer), which precludes the patent owner from recapturing subject matter that was relinquished during prosecution or invalidation in subsequent infringement actions. To invoke the doctrine of prosecution disclaimer, such statements must constitute a clear and…
On March 27th, 2018, the Court of Appeal of Paris issued a decision on withdrawal of the seizure order on the grounds that the principle of impartiality had been violated since the patent attorneys (“CPIs”) assisting the bailiff wrote a report on the probability of the infringement annexed at the seizure request. It will thus…
In a recent judgement rendered by the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court (SH2018.T-3-16 – Hexa-Cover A/S et al v. Kirk Plast A/S et al), the court heard an infringement case based on the alleged infringement by virtue of the marketing and sale of a system of so-called floating tabs, which serve to provide a cover…
On 12 July 2017, the UK Supreme Court handed down a ruling which caused a shockwave to resound across the UK patent community. For more than a decade, when addressing the issue of the construction and infringement of a patent, every practitioner would have focussed on the question prescribed by Lord Hoffmann in Kirin Amgen:…
