After years of not having handed down judgments in patent cases, in recent months the Supreme Court has handed down several interesting judgments which will hopefully give more guidance to lower level Courts. The last judgment in this recent saga, handed down on 18 July 2011, has confirmed the judgment of 19 December 2006 from…
Since 2009, French law has allowed patentees to voluntarily limit their granted patent claims. This possibility, which has existed for a long time in a number of European countries, (e.g. Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Norway and the United Kingdom) has recently been introduced into the European patent system through Art. 105bis et seq. of the…
The Court of Appeal Duesseldorf held that, provided that the alleged infringer proves a legitimate interest in confidentiality, the presentation of the expert opinion to the patentee itself depends on whether the inspection confirms infringement. If the expert opinion confirms infringement, and if the court has no expertise in the relevant technical field, it may…
The board refused to find a set of claims filed with the grounds of appeal admissible, because it concluded from the circumstances that the proprietor had deliberately refused to file these claims during first instance proceedings. The intention of Article 12(4) of the rules of procedure of the EPO boards of appeal was found by…
The Swiss Federal Supreme Court held in a recent decision that the Swiss company Teva Pharma AG had to bear the court costs and reimburse Novartis’s attorneys’ fees in preliminary injunction proceedings because of Teva’s contradictory conduct in this case. The decision was based on the following facts: On March 16, 2010, Teva was granted…
by Max v. Rospatt In a recent decision the Landgericht Duesseldorf (4a O 277/10 – Pramipexol) issued a preliminary injunction against a generic company before the generic was listed in one of the usual publications (Rote Liste, Lauer Taxe etc.). Plaintiff asserted infringing marketing activities solely based on information obtained from an independent market research…
Who may bring an action for patent revocation? Such is the fundamental question which has been submitted to the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris in a case whose factual circumstances made it very interesting. On 13 September 2010, Omnipharm Limited served a summons on Merial to appear before the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris to…
In this case the claimant filed an application for a supplementary protection certificate (SPC), however the application was refused by the Lithuanian patent office. Appeals before national courts were unsuccessful. The Supreme Court referred the question whether the six-month period for application for an SPC begins on the date of granting Community marketing authorization, or…
On 15 March 2011, in a dispute opposing the companies E.I Du Pont de Nemours and Merck and companies Mylan and Qualimed, the Cour d’Appel of Paris confirmed the order handed down on 12 February 2010 by the President of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris, subject-matter of a previous post. The American company E.I. Du Pont de…
Co-author Christiaen Dekoninck. Noteworthy decision on the balance of interests within the framework of preliminary injunction proceedings: Antwerp Court refuses to issue a preliminary injunction because the patent holder could have started accelerated proceedings on the merits earlier. By a decision of 15 March 2011, the President of the Antwerp Commercial Court dismissed the claims…
