and Fergus Tyrrell. Despite recent guidance, the UK High Court has deemed it necessary to refer a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that seeks to clarify what is meant by a “human embryo”, highlighting an uncertainty that exists in relation to the patenting of stem cells. The case ([2013]…
On 16 April 2013 the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) handed down a judgment dismissing the nullity actions filed by Spain and Italy against Council Decision 2011/167/EU, of 10 March 2011, whereby an enhanced cooperation procedure was approved relating to the creation of a unitary patent (joint cases C-274/11 and C-295/11). This decision has of…
One of the topics hotly discussed within the intellectual property family over the last few years is whether or not “transit” is an act of infringement. Since, unlike patent law, trademark law is already harmonised at the EU level, many cases have reached the ECJ, which has generated a saga of judgments that does not…
by Hetti Hilge The District Court Duesseldorf stayed a case between Huawei and ZTE concerning mobile and base stations within the LTE standard and referred five question to the CJEU (docket No. 4b O 104/12). The court wants to clarify under what circumstances an infringement court has to consider a compulsory license defense in a…
The Regional Court Dusseldorf submitted on 21 March 2013 a referral to the CJEU with five questions regarding the interpretation of Art. 102 TFEU relating to the antitrust objection of compulsory license in patent infringement actions. The patent infringement action at issue is concerned with a LTE-standard-essential patent. The plaintiff declared its readiness via the…
Introduction The Court of Justice of the European Union last year delivered a decision on the impact of the GAT/LuK decision on jurisdiction in preliminary infringement proceedings (Solvay/Honeywell). As the case below is continuing its way through the Dutch courts, the frequency of publications trying to make sense of the 2012 CJEU decision come down…
As previously reported on this blog, the new Unified Patent Court (UPC) will bring the biggest change in the patent litigation landscape Europe has ever seen. It will soon be possible to obtain a single court decision effective across the whole of a market worth around €10 trillion. The UPC will have jurisdiction over not…
For some years the European Commission has been drafting a new “Regulation Concerning Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights” replacing present Regulation EC/1383/2003. It now appears that legislative procedure is almost complete. The Internal Market Committee of the European Parliament and the Permanent Representatives Committee of the Council have recently adopted a compromise text. After…
The Polish government’s enthusiasm for the EU patent package has seriously dwindled of late. It appears to have taken several steps back with respect to the implementation of a unified patent protection regime across Europe as a result of the heavy criticism of the EU patent reform at home. In particular, the UPC is still…
As has been well publicised, the end of 2012 was a time of considerable progress in the long history of the Unitary patent and Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) dossier, culminating in adoption of the Unitary Patent Regulation 1257/2012 and its accompanying Language Regulation 1260/2012. But what next? Built into the Unitary Patent Regulation is a…
