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‘Why Berlin can’t wait for Brexit in matters of UPC’, is the title of a recent article on the website of the German law firm Kather Augenstein. Main point: if the Federal Constitutional Court dismisses the constitutional complaint against the Unified Patent Court Agreement, the German government will have to finish the ratification procedure immediately,…
Cases in which FRAND licences are discussed, and where if no licence is taken an injunction is requested, more closely resemble unpaid debt claims then IP-related cases and are thus less suitable for preliminary proceedings. Further, the fact that the case was complex, not only in relation to the patented subject-matter but also because of…
Board’s obviousness finding was predicated on erroneous finding that claim term “mechanical control assembly” was not a means-plus-function term. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board erred in finding that the term “mechanical control assembly” used in two independent claims of a patent directed to a steering and driving system for zero turn radius vehicles had…
The Court rejected a claim that a new action brought by the claimant asserting additional patents from its portfolio was an abuse of process, finding that a radical change in position by the defendant had driven the need for the claimant to bring an action on other patents. Case date: 17 April 2019 Case number:…
The Court of Appeal allowed ZyXEL’s appeal, finding that in light of its waiver of its RAND licence rights, declaratory relief to determine the scope and terms of the licence which TQD was bound to offer to the two ZyXEL parties would no longer serve a useful purpose. Case date: 18 July 2019 Case number:…
Proceedings for the preservation of evidence and the subsequent infringement proceedings are two separate proceedings and only the latter is relevant for starting an intervention in opposition proceedings according to Art. 105 EPC. The admissibility of an intervention should be established at the moment of intervention and this cannot be changed by later events. Case…
Even if the German constitutional complaint against the Unified Patent Court Agreement is dismissed, the German government will not proceed with ratification of the UPCA until the consequences of the Brexit are entirely clear. The German Justice Ministry made this clear in answer to questions of parliament. In a letter earlier this month it stated:…
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…
While the numerous recent court decisions may suggest so, the ‘F’ in FRAND does not stand for ‘Fashionable’. The reader of this blog, well-informed in patent matters, will know by heart what this acronym spells out. He (or, I say once and for all, she)1 will also know that, next to technical intricacies of assessing…
The Federal Supreme Court confirmed the Federal Patents Court’s (FPC) Decision of 12 June 2018 in which the FPC decided that article 140k of the Swiss Patent Act lists in an exhaustive manner all nullity grounds which can be invoked against SPCs. The six month application deadline of article 140f PA is not listed in…
