Non-Practicing Entity (NPE)
On 22 July 2016, IP Australia approved a patent specification involving computer programming in poker machines in Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Limited [2016] APO 49. IP Australia’s decision comes on the heels of the High Court of Australia’s approval of the Full Federal Court decision in Commissioner of Patents v RPL Central Pty Ltd [2015]…
by Rachel Mumby Those readers who are unfamiliar with the excessively optimistic outlook of Mr Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dicken’s novel David Copperfield, would be forgiven for having had to look up the word “Micawberism” on reading it in the judgment of Floyd J (as he then was) in Blacklight Power Inc. v The Comptroller-General…
by Nicholas Round On 19 April 2016 Birss J handed down a short but notable judgment in the matter of EMGS v PGS. Following a three-week trial in March 2016 the parties had decided to settle the matter before receiving judgment. However, the purpose of Birss J’s judgment was not particularly to comment on this,…
Europe is preparing for the launch of the new Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court (UPC). A provisional phase for the UPC is expected to start later this year, with a view to a full start of the system in the spring of 2017. In a series of articles, Kluwer IP Law explains the…
There has been some confusion in Germany as to whether exhibiting products and services on a trade show qualifies as an infringing act or not. Most prominently, two decisions of the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) have denied a general rule that any presentation of goods or services on a trade show justifies…
The creation of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) means that there will finally be a judiciary to control the very strong executive power of the European patent system, the European Patent Office, Jens Schovsbo, Professor at the Centre for Information and Innovation Law of the University of Copenhagen, told Kluwer IP Law in an interview. According…
…well not really, but the German Federal Court of Justice has recently issued a decision (Kreuzgestänge, X ZR 103/13) that may expose Germany’s “Bifurcation System” to even more questions and criticism than in the past. Bifurcation is a term probably originating from geography and generally means “splitting of a main body into two parts”. An…
Patent trolls, also called “non-practicing entities” (“NPE”), a rather more elegant name, have become a serious threat to the patent system, particularly in the IT arena in the United States (“U.S.”). As readers will know, patent troll is the expression normally used to designate companies that simply hold patents for the purpose of forcing third…
On June 4, 2013, the U.S. White House issued a press release announcing its “Task Force on High-Tech Patent Issues.” The press release outlined five executive actions and seven legislative recommendations “designed to protect innovators from frivolous litigation and ensure the highest-quality patents in our system.” The target of these initiatives are so-called “patent trolls,”…
When the legislation creating supplementary protection certificates (now consolidated in Regulation 469/2009/EC (the “SPC Regulation”)) was first introduced in 1993 no-one could have foreseen the deluge of CJEU references on the interpretation of this “uniform solution” that was to follow. As recently as autumn 2011, one might have expected (or at least hoped) that the…
