Litigation

(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…

CJEU, Damages, Enforcement, Generics, Infringement, Injunction, Litigation, Patents, Pharma, Pharmaceutical patent, Sweden

(Gulliksson)/ /2 Comments

Introduction A key mechanism in patent litigation and specifically for generics is the concept of “launch at risk”. In short the concept means that a product is launched prior to the expiry of a patent despite the risk that the patent proprietor in such case could initiate infringement proceedings which often includes requests for a…

Case Law, EPO, Exceptions to patentability, France, FRAND, Injunction, Inventive step, IP Management, Litigation, Novelty, Patents, SEP

(Dhenne Avocats)/

In the first part of this interview (see here), I already mentioned some of the preconceived ideas about French Courts, which makes France almost systematically considered as one of the last territory to litigate: jurisdictions would be anti-patentee, slow, unable to order preliminary injunctions, even not “specialized”. The Cross-Examination Part I of Mrs. Nathalie Sabotier…

Guidelines, Legal costs, Litigation, Netherlands, Procedure, Reimbursement

(Brinkhof)/ /2 Comments

What is it with the Dutch and money? How much truth is there in the cliché that the Dutch are cheap? Do we really get back to business after a romantic diner and split the bill to the cent? Where does this ‘going Dutch’ come from? That term, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, connects…

Case Law, evidence, France, IP Management, Litigation, Patents, Procedure

(Dhenne Avocats)/

It’s an understatement to say that it’s not always very easy to be a French patent litigator in a transnational litigation, in any case a good dose of humor is needed: how many jokes have I heard about our jurisdictional system? Then you have to accept that France is almost systematically considered as the territory…