On Wednesday 16 June 2021, Mr Justice Mellor handed down his judgment in the second technical trial in the Mitsubishi & Sisvel v OnePlus & Xiaomi proceedings ([2021] EWHC 1639 (Pat)), holding that the patents in suit were valid and essential to the LTE standard. The proceedings had been brought in an attempt to persuade…
The interplay between EPO and national proceedings may take various forms. The Technical Board of Appeal revoking a European Patent during European-wide litigation is one of the more dramatic examples. The EPO’s stay of the grant of an application following an entitlement claim (an ‘entitlement torpedo’) another one. And then there is the central limitation…
On 22 April 2021 the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC) gave a judgement in Claydon Yield-O-Meter v Mzuri, a UK case on patent invalidity because of prior disclosure. As is known, in order for an invention to be considered new under Section 2(2) of the UK’s Patents Act 1977, it must not form part of…
In the past few years, India has produced significant case law on Standard Essential Patents (‘SEPs’), with the High Court of Delhi being the venue of several high-profile disputes. An important SEP decision in India – InterDigital v Xiaomi – was released by this court in early May 2021. The case relates to litigation occurring…
Case law on contributory infringement is still very scarce in Spain. A Judgment dated 13 November 2020 offers a rare glimpse into the current stance of the influential Barcelona Court of Appeals (Section 15) on contributory infringement. Two points are worth noting: on the one hand, the Court sides with a specific interpretation of “staple…
When transporting flowers, several measures need to be taken to maintain their freshness. Floriation’s patent required regulation of the ethylene concentration in the package. Whether Royal Flora Holland had used this feature was the central theme in this decision. The provisions judge found no direct infringement and also concluded that there was no equivalency, since…
Sending a warning letter is not a pre-condition to enforce patent rights as per Turkish Law. However, considering it is a cost-effective and fast way to solve disputes, patent owners may choose to send warning letters to perceived infringers. In 2014, a global pharmaceutical company filed a patent infringement action against a Gx company asking…
SEP-related case law in Europe is regularly reported in this blog, and other European platforms. Decisions of courts in UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands on FRAND royalties, anti-suit injunctions, anti-anti-suit injunctions, declarations of essentiality and other SEP issues are often thoroughly commented upon. This is not the case of Italian SEP case law. While…
Plaintiff’s arguments before the district court were often objectively unreasonable or frivolous; the frivolous nature of his appeal also warranted sanctions against plaintiff and his counsel of appellate fees and double costs. An individual who asserted that he was the co-inventor of a patent directed to a method of “reverse online dating” must pay the…
In the aftermath of the landmark decision ‘Unwired Planet vs Huawei’, a series of other FRAND litigations have followed suit. Cases such as Conversant vs ZTE/Huawei, Philips vs TCL, TQ Delta v ZyXel or Optis v Apple pertain equally to the licensing of standard essential patents. From an economic perspective this raises the question as…
