On 22 July 2016, IP Australia approved a patent specification involving computer programming in poker machines in Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Limited [2016] APO 49. IP Australia’s decision comes on the heels of the High Court of Australia’s approval of the Full Federal Court decision in Commissioner of Patents v RPL Central Pty Ltd [2015]…
Claim construction and scope of protection are perhaps the most hotly contested topics in Dutch patent law. Over the last ten years, we have had no less than six Supreme Court decisions dealing with these matters. The latest development in this continuing saga is the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bayer / Sandoz, which offers…
On 29 April 2016, the Australian Productivity Commission published a Draft Report on its enquiry into Australia’s Intellectual Property Arrangements. Although the Draft Report provides separate analyses on the state of copyright, patents, designs and trade marks, it arrives at a common conclusion: Aussie IP needs work. “Not as effective as they could be” The…
In a recent judgment of 2 February 2016, the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) was called on to interpret the scope of protection of what are known as “product-by-process” claims. One of the issues discussed by the parties was whether the scope of protection of claim 1 of patent EP 731.646 B1, which claims…
Case reported and summarized by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP Mr Justice Carr is only a few months into his judicial career, but having already provided welcome guidance on the role of plausibility in considering both the questions of inventive step and sufficiency (see earlier blog post on Actavis v Eli Lilly), he has now produced…
…well not really, but the German Federal Court of Justice has recently issued a decision (Kreuzgestänge, X ZR 103/13) that may expose Germany’s “Bifurcation System” to even more questions and criticism than in the past. Bifurcation is a term probably originating from geography and generally means “splitting of a main body into two parts”. An…
The Actavis v Eli Lilly UK litigation concerning pemetrexed (sold by Eli Lilly under the brand Alimta(®) has already been widely reported in light of Actavis’ innovative application to the English court for declarations of non-infringement (DNIs) of national designations of a European Patent in addition to the UK designation. The latest instalment concerns the…
On 28 May 2015, the English Court of Appeal issued a ruling in the on-going Lyrica saga which, although almost certainly not representing the last word on the topic, took a markedly different approach to the correct construction of Swiss form claims to the first instance judge, Arnold J. One thing there does appears to…
The Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice) in the decision Audiosignalcodierung (judgement of 3 February 2015, X ZR 69/13) confirmed the principle established in the Bundesgerichtshof decision Funkuhr II, according to which the delivery of a product to a third party in a territory outside of Germany constitutes a patent infringement in Germany if the…
Dimitrios T Drivas (White & Case) gave the speedy run down on the following points and cases, which some might find useful for following up on points of interest: Supreme Court The decision that in exceptional cases reasonable attorney’s fees may be paid to the prevailing party (an exception to the rule that each party…
