The right to an unpatented invention does not entitle to its exclusive use; it ceases to exist if the invention is made public without patent protection. The right to an unpatented invention encompasses no more than (i) the right to file a patent application and (ii) the right to claim the patent, in case a…

In my blog of 10 June 2011 I had reported about the decision by the Landgericht Duesseldorf “Pramipexol” (4a O 277/10) where the Court of first Instance had granted a PI based on an anonymous confirmation by a research institute. This decision has been reversed by the Court of Appeals (I-2 U 22/11). The Court…

Laboratoires Negma (hereinafter referred to as “Negma”) is the exclusive licensee of European patent No. 0 520 414 which relates to a method for the preparation of diacetylrhein (also called diacerein) having a specific degree of purity as well as diacetylrhein obtained by this process and a pharmaceutical composition containing this compound. Such European patent was first filed…

by Stephan Lieck The Düsseldorf Regional Court had to decide whether it is misleading under competition law that the former proprietor of a patent advertises with the fact that there is patent protection for a product (wrongful representation of an article as patent-ed/arrogation of patent), although the patent had expired at the time of arrogation…

There seems to be ample consensus in that Justice is better administered by specialised Judges than by non-specialised Judges. With this view in mind, in 1993 the Barcelona Court of Appeal took a groundbreaking step forward by conferring exclusive competence to one section (Section 15) to hear appeals filed in intellectual property cases. The successful…

AstraZeneca filed a request with the Patent Office (PO) for the publication in the PO’s official bullet of a court judgment invalidating a previous PO’s decision regarding the termination of one of AstraZeneca’s patents. The PO denied AstraZeneca’s request for publication due to a pending procedure for the issuance of a supplementary protection certificate (SPC)…

The English High Court has recently ruled on the appropriateness of staying validity and infringement proceedings pending a Technical Board of Appeal (“TBA”) decision of the European Patent Office (“EPO”), and on using disclosed documents in parallel foreign proceedings. The parties involved have had a number of skirmishes recently in various courts throughout the world….