United Kingdom

Added matter, Amendments, Disclaimer, EPC, Germany, Netherlands, Opposition, Revocation, United Kingdom, Validity

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

Litigation and EPO Oppositions/Appeals surrounding a controlled-release dosage form of the drug oxycodone, a morphine-like opioid analgesic developed in 1918, has kept Europe’s Pharma IP Lawyers busy for a couple of years. One of the key EP patents in this battle has been EP 722 730, and almost everything about this patent is out of…

Jurisdiction, Procedure, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

The English High Court has recently ruled on the appropriateness of staying validity and infringement proceedings pending a Technical Board of Appeal (“TBA”) decision of the European Patent Office (“EPO”), and on using disclosed documents in parallel foreign proceedings. The parties involved have had a number of skirmishes recently in various courts throughout the world….

Case Law, Procedure, Revocation, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

The general rule in UK litigation is that the successful party is entitled to its costs. One exception to this rule, peculiar to patent cases, is a so-called ‘Earth Closet’ order. If an alleged infringer introduces a new piece of prior art, after service of its original Grounds of Invalidity, an Earth Closet order enables…

(Compulsory) license, (Indirect) infringement, Procedure, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

We revisit this case, not this time regarding the question of what constitutes the ‘making’ of an invention as resolved by the Court of Appeal in March 2011, but with regards to the question of costs in relation to Schütz as an exclusive licensee. The general position under English law is if an exclusive licence…

Austria, Belgium, Extent of Protection, France, Germany, Norway, Scope of protection, SPC, United Kingdom

(Véron & Associés)/

As already explained in a previous post, the company governed by the laws of Switzerland, Novartis AG, is the holder of patent EP 0 443 983 entitled “Acyl compounds”, whose subject-matter is a group of antihypertensive compounds, including valsartan, pharmaceutical preparations containing them and processes for the preparation of these compounds. This patent, filed on 12 February 1991, was to…

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

The smartphone forum wars still show no sign of abating with another application for an expedited patent revocation action before the English Court (ZTE v Ericsson [2011] EWHC 2709 (Pat)), following closely on the heels of the HTC v Apple case that we reported on last month (judgment dated 19 September 2011; post dated 6…