The Supreme Court held that disputes relating to confidential information contained in an expert’s report, filed in the framework of descriptive seizure proceedings, can be heard by the court having granted leave for these proceedings. Such disputes do not have to be adjourned until the proceedings on the merits. Click here for the full text of this…
By Miquel Montañá In year 2021, Italy will celebrate the 600th anniversary of the patent granted by the Republic of Florence to Filippo Brunelleschi for his ship “Il Badalone”, the first patent ever granted. Quite ironically, the fathers of the first patent, and of the first Patent Act, approved by the Republic of Venice in…
Over the last few years, Spanish Courts have struggled to resolve an avalanche of cases where the core of the discussion was the legal effects of TRIPS on the effects of the Reservation made by Spain when it joined the European Patent Convention in 1986. According to this Reservation, patents filed before 7 October 1992…
We revisit this case, not this time regarding the question of what constitutes the ‘making’ of an invention as resolved by the Court of Appeal in March 2011, but with regards to the question of costs in relation to Schütz as an exclusive licensee. The general position under English law is if an exclusive licence…
In a recent decision by the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court (reported in the Danish Legal Gazette as U2011.2745S), the court ruled on the issue of restitution subsequent to default in making timely payment of a renewal fee. A US company, acting thorugh local patent counsel, failed to pay its 5 year renewal fee on…
by Miriam Büttner In a recent decision of 15 September 2011 (ref. no. 4b O 99/11) the District Court of Düsseldorf (LG Düsseldorf) found that a non-final decision of the utility model cancel-lation division of the German Patent and Trademark Office (GPTO), with which the utility model was declared (partially) invalid, is not a sufficient…
On 8 November 2011, in the case of Fresenius v Carefusion, the English Court of Appeal declared that “the Earth Closet order should be consigned to the place that bears its name.” The “Earth Closet” or See v Scott Paine Order was an idiosyncratic but potentially very important principle of English patent law. The Order…
In a judgment handed down on 11 November 2011, the Spanish Supreme Court has rejected an appeal filed by four Spanish pharmaceutical companies against a judgment from the Court of Appeal of Barcelona (Section 15), which had rejected a revocation action filed against patent EP 409,281 (Calcium salt of Atorvastatin) owned by Warner-Lambert. Applying the…
by Dr. Ulrich Pross, rospatt osten pross Sec. 522 Civil Procedure Act (CPA) provided that courts competent to hear appeals on fact (Berufungsgerichte) can and must reject an appeal (Berufung) immediately without hearing if – the appeal has no chance of success, – the case is not of fundamental significance, and – neither the development…
On 20 September 2011, in a patent infringement case, the French Cour de cassation issued an important decision in which, for the first time, it refers to and relies on “the principle according to which a person may not contradict themselves to the detriment of another person“, i.e. on the estoppel. With this decision, the French supreme…
