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…
Whilst many in show business have long lived by the adage “never work with children or animals” for fear of what might ensue, patent litigators in the UK have long been known to take a similar approach to experiments, avoiding them if at all possible for fear of the results. Indeed, Laddie J noted once…
Three pending cases have the potential to reshape – or even eliminate – inter partes review, a procedure for challenging patent validity introduced by the 2011 America Invents Act (“AIA”). On November 27, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in two of those cases. In Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group,…
Allergan’s assignment of the patents on one of its blockbuster drugs to an American Indian tribe in an attempt to dismiss a USPTO inter partes review (IPR) proceeding on “tribal sovereign immunity” grounds has shaken up the patent bar – with some dismissing this as, at most, a temporary loophole and others saying “why didn’t…
Patent lawyers in the UK have spent the last three months pondering, debating and at times indulging in an element of despair (to put it mildly) about what might be the impact of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Actavis v Eli Lilly [2017] UKSC 48 on issues of validity (see here). Today they…
Whilst ostensibly a standards essential patents dispute, there have now been two decisions from the English Courts in this case both on the construction of a licence agreement under Californian law. These two judgments have come before any substantive decisions on infringement or validity of the three patents asserted by Philips against Asus and HTC….
