The inventive step reflects a general patentability requirement in most patent laws, according to which an invention should be sufficiently inventive (not obvious in view of the prior art using the skilled person’s common general knowledge) in order to be patented / the patent to be held valid. In the United States, rather than ‘inventive step’, the expression ‘non-obviousness’ is used: is the invention an adequate distance beyond or above the state of the art? The assessment of the inventive step varies from one country to another. The European Patent Office uses the so-called problem-and-solution approach to assess inventive step, an instrument also used by several national European courts.
With the Judges mostly on summer vacation, August and September have given some time for reflection on several decisions from the Patents Courts in July. One of those decisions was another defeat for Rovi against Virgin from the Court of Appeal in Rovi v Virgin [2015] EWCA Civ 781. Floyd LJ. gave the leading judgment…
Some Late Summer Thoughts about Molten Polymers and two Decisions by the German Federal Court of Justice Now that the unusual heat of this summer in central Europe finally seems to have ended, it might be a good point in time to activate our cerebral bio-polymers again. So let us muse about the melting of…
The end of July always brings a flurry of decisions from English Patents Courts at all levels as the Judges, understandably, seek to clear their desks before the summer vacation. This year was no exception with at least half a dozen judgments concerning patents being handed down in the space of two weeks. Among them…
Apart from the enthralling Lyrica saga which began in earnest back in January, and the main trial of which recently began before Arnold J, 2015 has not witnessed many significant pharmaceutical patent decisions from the UK patents courts. Thus, three cases in this field which, rather like London buses, arrived almost simultaneously, have provided welcome…
Dimitrios T Drivas (White & Case) gave the speedy run down on the following points and cases, which some might find useful for following up on points of interest: Supreme Court The decision that in exceptional cases reasonable attorney’s fees may be paid to the prevailing party (an exception to the rule that each party…
The Board emphasized that there was a relation between who was to be considered to be the skilled person for judging inventive step on one hand and the choice of the closest prior art on the other hand. A general problem to modify a product from one field so that it could be used in…
For those who thought that patent litigation was only relevant for big pharma or cutting-edge telecom devices, it may be of interest to learn about a relatively recent judgment from the Court of Appeal of A Coruña that has resolved a fierce dispute around patents protecting mollusc cleaning machines. A Coruña is one of the…
The Oslo District Court held that the expired Norwegian patent 306452 (“452 Patent”) was invalid due to lack of inventive step, which implied that its supplementary protection certificate SPC014 was invalid as well. The court also found the 176 Patent invalid. A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
by Stephan Disser The German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) has just issued its written decision in the case “Repaglinid” (X ZR 128/09). As far as can be seen, the decision is not yet available on the FCJ’s website www.bundesgerichtshof.de. The FCJ rejected the patent proprietor’s appeal against the decision of the Federal Patent Court…
Regular readers of the Kluwer patent blog may recall that in April 2014, the English Patents Court revoked two patents relating to trastuzumab, the active ingredient in Herceptin, which is marketed outside of the US by Roche. One patent was for a dosage regimen and the other related to a composition of trastuzumab containing certain…
