One of the most controversial provisions of the Spanish Patents Act is article 137.2, which states “Where the measures requested involve restrictions on the defendant’s industrial or commercial activity, the judge shall, when deciding with respect thereto, fix the amount of the security by which the said defendant may at any time substitute the effectiveness…
About a month ago Rüdiger Pansch reported on the new “General Terms and Conditions” of the Regional Court of Munich in patent infringement matters (http://kluwerpatentblog.com/2012/03/20/patent-chambers-of-munich-district-court-decree-general-terms-and-conditions/). Now, also the Regional Court of Düsseldorf has put more elaborated advice for the parties in writing. In general, this new procedural order more or less goes along the well-established…
As in other jurisdictions, German Courts try to determine whether an invention is patentable over the prior art by looking at it through the eyes of the notional skilled person at the effective filing date of the patent at issue. In a decision pronounced on March 6, 2012 (docket X ZR 78/09), the German Federal…
Mr X was ordered to pay damages for the infringement of a French patent No. 87‑03865, relating to a massage device, by a decision of the Cour d’Appel of Limoges on 10 September 2001. In the absence of an appeal on a point of law, this decision became irrevocable. However, in a separate action, the same patent was subsequently…
One of the challenges of patent litigation in Spain is that our Civil Procedure Law is somewhat more formalistic than the laws of some other EU Member States, which would normally accept documents filed in English. Under article 144 of the Civil Procedure Law, parties are required to file a translation of documents written in…
Merck Sharp Dohme Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited v. Teva Pharma B.V. and Teva UK limited On 15 March 2012, the High Court in England and Wales delivered some useful guidance on when a patentee can obtain an interim injunction in a pharmaceutical patent infringement action. The case was Merck Sharp Dohme Corp. and…
The EPO Boards of Appeal distinguish between the anonymous character of third party observations in ex parte and inter partes appeal proceedings.
On the defendant’s side, knowing what the patent dispute is all about is essential for your strategy. Not only do you need to adjust your non-infringement arguments to the plaintiff’s assertions concerning how the features of the claim are fulfilled in the attacked embodiment. Even more importantly, the scope of an infringement verdict is determined…
by Rüdiger Pansch for rospatt osten pross An interesting paper comes with the case management directions of the Munich District Court after the complaint is served upon defendants. It titles “The new AGB of the Patent Chambers” while AGB stands for “Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen” meaning General Terms and Conditions, i.e. fixed terms that one party of…
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Article 13 of the old SPC Regulation (EEC 1768/92, identical to article 13 of the “new” SPC Regulation (EC469/2009) in conjunction with Article 36 of the Pediatric Regulation (EC 1901/2006), allow for the grant of an SPC of negative duration. The additional term provided by…
