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In my first post I have described the old shabby courtroom of the patent chamber of the District Court of Düsseldorf. Meanwhile the court has moved to a new court house which is situated close to the central station. This new location is the result of a more service oriented approach of the judicature. Not…
On 12 July 2010 the Supreme Court handed down a long-waited judgment, dismissing a complaint filed by a manufacturer of generic medicaments against a patent owner that had threatened more than one hundred wholesalers with patent infringement actions. The facts of the case go back to 2003, when a Court of First Instance of Madrid…
By decision of 29 July 2010, the Italian Supreme Administrative Court (Consiglio di Stato) tackled the difficult issue of whether the Italian drugs regulatory authority (Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco – AIFA) should or should not consider the existence of a patent when adopting decisions relating to the marketing authorisations of generics. In the case at…
Under the UK’s standard duty of disclosure, each party is required to disclose the documents on which it relies, the documents which adversely affect its or another party’s case and the documents which support another party’s case. In patent disputes, disclosure relating to infringement of a product or process can be avoided by the provision…
The Court of Appeal has held that the skilled person (which can be a team of individuals) may vary depending on the question in issue (e.g. obviousness, novelty, sufficiency or construction). The patents in suit taught the use of marine Controlled Source Electromagnetic (“CSEM”) surveying to locate oil or gas. For the purposes of sufficiency…
This case concerned the issue of patentability. The Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO) refused a patent application on the grounds that the invention only consisted in an automation of a known process. This DKPTO decision was appealed before the High Court and subsequently brought before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court upheld the High…
By 24 similar decisions rendered on 14 April 2010, the Cour d’Appel of Paris held that new Article L. 614-7 of the French Intellectual Property Code, implementing the London Agreement, applies not only to European patents in respect of which the mention of grant had been published after 1 May 2008 but also to European patents in respect of which the mention of grant had been published before 1 May 2008. One of these decisions is here summarized.
One of the topics that have kept our Courts busy over the last few years relates to which test should be applied to judge “equivalence”. Whereas the U.S.’s “same function-same way-same result” test has been accepted in cases involving mechanical patents, it has been discarded in cases dealing with chemical patents. In its judgment of…
The Danish Supreme Court dismissed Meyn’s claim against Linco and declared Meyn’s patent invalid.
By decision of 9 June 2010, the Italian Supreme Court tackled the issue of patent exhaustion in a manner which may give rise to some debate. The case concerned a claim of infringement brought by Bavelloni, an Italian manufacturer of machines for glass processing, against competitor Bottero which had exhibited in a trade fair a…
