On 12 July 2017, the UK Supreme Court handed down a ruling which caused a shockwave to resound across the UK patent community. For more than a decade, when addressing the issue of the construction and infringement of a patent, every practitioner would have focussed on the question prescribed by Lord Hoffmann in Kirin Amgen:…
After a decade-long hiatus, so-called Arrow declarations are now firmly back in fashion after the Court of Appeal’s judgment last year in Fujifilm Kyowa Kirin Biologics Co, Ltd v Abbvie Biotechnology Ltd & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 1. To recap, what are now known as Arrow declarations originate from the decision in Arrow Generics Ltd…
by Claire Phipps-Jones On 24 April 2018, Roger Wyand QC (sitting as a deputy judge in the High Court) held that a patent belonging to Freebit was invalid and not infringed by Bose’s flexible in-ear earpieces. The key points of interest in the decision concerned construction and the fact evidence relied on in relation to…
Whilst being wary of placing too much emphasis on statistics (the phrase “lies, damn lies and statistics” comes to mind), the authors have seen figures which suggest that the last ten years have consistently seen English patent litigation outcomes which are overall less favourable to the patentee than their opponents. That is until 2017, when…
The Hague courts are not reluctant to cross borders in patent litigation. The Dutch cross-border injunction is one (in)famous example. Maybe it’s the lack of mountains providing – on the spare sunny days – clear views to foreign skies. In two recent cases The Hague District Court has embraced a pan-European approach to the threat…
Wise readers will know that when it comes to matters of the heart, it is often best not to interfere. Indeed, the Court of Appeal in its recent judgment in Edwards Lifesciences v Boston Scientific [2018] EWCA Civ 673, decided not to interfere with HHJ Hacon’s judgment that of the two patents in suit relating…
On October 8, 2017, the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council jointly issued a special opinion on the reform of drug and medical device approval system (“Innovation Opinion”). The Innovation Opinion together with an earlier China Food and Drug Administration (“CFDA”) document (“Circular No. 55”) issued in May 2017 (collectively “Reform Opinion”), propose that…
Around this time last year, in Edwards Lifesciences v Boston Scientific [2017], His Honour Judge Hacon (sitting as a High Court Judge) had the opportunity to analyse two interesting aspects of UK patent law: (i) the law of implied disclosures and anticipation; and (ii) the importance of so-called secondary evidence in the evaluation of inventive…
Over the last few decades, the United States has been incrementally harmonizing its patent law with the rest of the world. Those efforts continued with the signing of the America Invents Act (“AIA”) in 2011. For example, the AIA created a first inventor-to-file patent system, while all but eliminating the best mode requirement. One area…
I hope that all the readers of the Kluwer Patent Blog enjoyed a good start into a joyful, healthy and successful 2018. At the beginning of the new year it seems to be the right point in time to look back at the past year and recall the most remarkable developments and cases in Swiss…
