One of the topics hotly discussed within the intellectual property family over the last few years is whether or not “transit” is an act of infringement. Since, unlike patent law, trademark law is already harmonised at the EU level, many cases have reached the ECJ, which has generated a saga of judgments that does not…
The Paris Court of Appeal clarified the interest of a potential competitor to seek the revocation of a patent. It was particularly unclear whether any competitor, current or potential, could have a legitimate interest in the form of a “clear the path” approach. However, in this case the Court held that Omnipharm had no legitimate…
Spain adopted the optional clause in Article 65 of the EPC, which requires a translation of the patent filed with the national patent office within 3 months of publication of the patent by EPO. The Supreme Court decided that this term starts on the date of publication of the announcement of the granting of the…
The Court of Appeal of Liège confirmed the President of the Commercial Court’s finding that the appellant had committed patent infringement, and ordered the reimbursement of costs of the saisie-contrefaçon (seizure of evidence), which were not considered damages but as procedural costs. Click here for the full text of this case. A summary of this case…
The complexities of European patent architecture raise a number of issues relating to the interface between opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office (“EPO”) and infringement proceedings before national courts. A recent case has raised one of such issues, namely: what the impact should be of the revocation of the patent by the EPO in…
By decision of 21 February 2013, the Court of Turin clarified the test for prima facie case in search proceedings and the test for urgency in search proceedings and preliminary proceedings in general. In the case at issue, 4B-Four Bind had obtained an ex-parte search order aimed at inspecting post-print binding machines of competitor KGS,…
by Henrik Timmann There is a saying in Germany: Two lawyers add up to three different opinions. Well, for a long time the Federal Patent Court seemed to have been inspired by this saying when deciding on the reimbursement of lawyers’ fees in nullity actions. Background Most of you will know about the bifurcated system…
The French saisie-contrefaçon is known to be an extremely powerful and effective tool to collect evidence of infringement of a patent (as of any other intellectual property right, see “Saisie-contrefaçon” on Wikipedia and also P. Véron et alii, Saisie-contrefaçon, Paris, Dalloz Action, 3rd ed. 2013-2014). It is a procedure that allows to request and obtain from…
In an appeal against a decision by the Opposition Division to maintain the patent in amended form, the Board ordered the representative of the opponent to file an authorization. The representative did not do so in due time, but indicated that the opponent would take no further action. The Board held that the legal fiction…
Ensuring the independence and integrity of its judges is crucial for every court system. After its first year of existence, the Swiss Federal Patent Court has slightly amended its Guidelines on Independence for the part-time judges of the Federal Patent Court. However, those guidelines have proven to be very useful in practice. It is interesting…
