Historically, damages used to be calculated in the so-called “execution” (i.e. enforcement) phase of the proceedings, i.e. a second phase of the proceedings aimed at implementing the declarations and orders included in the judgment handed down after declaratory infringement proceedings. Due to the abuse of this system, in practice, the “execution” phase resulted in complex…
The District Court held a patent entitled “Special Alcoholic Drink” invalid, due to lack of novelty and clarity as a non-enabling disclosure. Furthermore, the Court dismissed the invalidity action filed against the Patent Office, holding that it was neither the inventor nor the patent holder and also because it had only taken into account the…
In a recent decision the new Swiss Federal Patent Court confirmed that it adheres to the case law with regard of the wording of prayers for relief in Swiss patent proceedings. Unlike in other jurisdictions, plaintiffs in Swiss patent proceedings must be very careful if they just adopt the wording from their patent claims in…
In its recent judgment of 26 October 2012, the Spanish Supreme Court (Judge Rapporteur Mr José Ramón Ferrándiz Gabriel) has clarified an interesting point over which lower level courts offered diverging views over the last few years. The question is from which date are TRIPS’ provisions on patents applicable from the perspective of domestic law:…
According to Article 65 of the European Patent Convention (“EPC”), when the European patent granted is not drafted in one of the official languages of the EPC, any contracting state may require that the patent owner file a translation of the patent with the national patent service within 3 months of the publication of the…
Thanks to the constitutional revision of 23 July 2008 (which created Article 61-1 and amended Article 62 of the French Constitution), a new procedure to control the constitutionality of laws was introduced into French law, which came into force on 1st March 2010: the “priority question on constitutionality” (“question prioritaire de constitutionnalité”). Before this reform, the constitutionality could only be verified…
One of the remedies available to intellectual property owners introduced by what is known as the Enforcement Directive was the publication of the judgment where infringement is declared. This remedy was already foreseen in article 63 of the 1986 Spanish Patents Act, which includes among the remedies available to the patent owner, inter alia, “the…
Applying a purposive construction of the claims the Court found no infringement similar to the conclusion in prior parallel proceedings between the parties in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. The issue of added matter was left to be addressed in a separate judgment. Click here for the full text of this case. A summary…
On 27 September 2012, a new consolidated version of the Draft Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (Document 14268/12) was (finally) published. The consolidated text includes some of the amendments agreed upon on 5 December 2011 as well as on the 29/30 June 2012 EU Council summit, and also presents further amendments and quite a…
In the wake of the UPC Agreement having been entered into under the Danish presidency, there was widespread euphoria about the many, potentially positive, aspects of Danish SME litigants being able to save substantial costs under the envisaged UPC regime. The Danish press abounded in positive reviews put forward by politicians and industry representatives alike,…
