Litigation

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, (Indirect) infringement, China, Competition, Enforcement, FRAND, Germany, Infringement, Injunction, Litigation, Patents, SEP, United Kingdom, United States of America

(Bristows)/ /1 Comment

This short post reports on one of the Panel Sessions at this year’s AIPPI Congress which took place virtually for the second year in a row. The tenth panel session of the AIPPI Online World Congress 2021 addressed global FRAND determinations by national courts and out-of-jurisdiction judgments in the form of anti-suit and anti-anti-suit injunctions….

Litigation, Patents, Procedure, Switzerland

(MLL Legal Ltd.) and (Meyerlustenberger Lachenal Ltd. (MLL))/ /5 Comments

In a recent decision, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court – Switzerland’s highest court also in patent matters – dealt with the question of whether the assessment of patent claims is fundamentally a question of law or a question of fact. This distinction is relevant under Swiss law for example because in Switzerland, after the conclusion…

Damages, European Union, France, IP Management, Litigation, Patents, Procedure

(Dhenne Avocats)/ /7 Comments

My eminent colleague Pierre Véron, who needs no introduction here, is the author of a recent survey on the ranking of European jurisdictions in terms of damages awarded over the period 2000-2019 [1]The full version was published in English in Festschrift for President Meier-Beck in the journal GRUR (GRUR 2/2021)., which particularly caught my attention…

Litigation, Pharmaceutical patent, Plausibility, Second Medical Use, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

, (Bristows)/ /1 Comment

In undoubtedly one of the most important decisions of the year so far, on 24 August 2021, the English Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in FibroGen v Akebia (FibroGen Inc v Akebia Therapeutics Inc [2021] EWCA Civ 1279), partially allowing FibroGen’s appeal, and so finding one of the ‘Family A’ patents, EP 823,…

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, Infringement, Inventive step, Kluwer Patent Cases, Litigation, Patents, Prior art

(Bristows)/

In this decision of the Patents Court, Meade J dismissed an infringement claim brought by Promptu against Sky, on grounds that Promptu’s patent lacked inventive step.  The decision is interesting as it grapples with issues of infringement where some steps of a claimed method are performed outside the UK.  The decision also provides helpful guidance…

Case Law, Kluwer Patent Cases, Litigation, Patents, SEP, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

On 25 June 2021 Meade J handed down his decision in the second of a series of trials listed as part of the Optis v Apple UK action ([2021] EWHC 1739 (Pat); a link the judgment is here).  This decision concerned the validity and infringement of EP (UK) 2 229 744.  This patent had previously…

Case Law, Covid-19, Damages, Electrical Engineering, Enforcement, evidence, Infringement, Inventive step, Kluwer Patent Cases, Legal costs, Litigation, Patents, Procedure, United Kingdom

, (Bristows)/ /8 Comments

As many readers will already know, two new full-time Patents Judges have been appointed to the English Court in the last 9 months – Meade and Mellor JJ.  Despite the challenges that the global pandemic has brought, the English Patents Court has coped remarkably well and there has been no let-up in the progress of…

Case Law, FRAND, Kluwer Patent Cases, Litigation, Patents, Procedure, SEP, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

On Wednesday 16 June 2021, Mr Justice Mellor handed down his judgment in the second technical trial in the Mitsubishi & Sisvel v OnePlus & Xiaomi proceedings ([2021] EWHC 1639 (Pat)), holding that the patents in suit were valid and essential to the LTE standard. The proceedings had been brought in an attempt to persuade…

Case Law, EPC, EPO, Litigation, Netherlands, Procedure, Validity

(Brinkhof)/ /16 Comments

The interplay between EPO and national proceedings may take various forms. The Technical Board of Appeal revoking a European Patent during European-wide litigation is one of the more dramatic examples. The EPO’s stay of the grant of an application following an entitlement claim (an ‘entitlement torpedo’) another one. And then there is the central limitation…

Litigation, Pharma, Pharmaceutical patent, Portugal

(VdA Vieira de Almeida firm)/ /1 Comment

When it comes to the judicial enforcement of pharmaceutical patents in Portugal, over the past few decades the general public has been driven to the misconception that the system protects pharmaceutical industry originators’ tactics to delay the market entry of generics. The European Generic Medicines Association (EGA)’s “Patent-related Barriers to Market Entry for Generic Medicines…