In a long-awaited judgment, the Spanish Supreme Court has clarified the application of the TRIPS agreement to patent applications affected by the Spanish reservation to the EPC: Article 70.7 of TRIPS allowed owners of patent applications filed before 7 October 1992, but which were still pending when TRIPS came into force, to amend the patents…
In our last blog (Will the Spanish Patent Office accept the modification of an SPC’s term after the Incyte judgment?), published on 8 January 2018, we raised the question as to whether the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (“SPTO”) would accept the modification of the term of a supplementary protection certificate (“SPC”) after the judgment…
There has been much excitement and comment amongst the UK patent profession following the Supreme Court’s decision in Actavis v Eli Lilly [2017] UKSC 48 (see previous comment here) on patent claim construction. However, the Court in that case did not clarify how “normal” principles of claim interpretation are now to be applied, and whether…
An EPO board of appeal observed that a careful opponent that is economically active in the same field as the patentee should search for internal evidence of public prior use before filing an opposition. If such internal evidence is filed belatedly, the fact the search was started only after filing the opposition per se is…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s rejection on inter partes review of 16 claims of a patent for a handheld universal tool for use with various remote tire pressure monitoring systems. The Board erred, however, in denying the patent owner’s request to substitute 16…
The Federal Court of Justice held that a patent application is to be rejected if its subject-matter extends beyond the content of the application as originally filed and if this deficiency has not been rectified by the applicant upon request by the examiner (following FCJ X ZB 17/73 Regelventil). The incorporation of a feature according…
Patent-owner Inventor Holdings, LLC, was properly ordered by the federal district court in Wilmington, Delaware, to pay attorney fees and costs incurred by retailer Bed Bath & Beyond in successfully defending against infringement claims, after the asserted patent was found to be ineligible under Section 101 of the Patent Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals…
Few would dispute that the Actavis v Eli Lilly decision from the Supreme Court in July 2017 represented – for better or for worse – a major change to the scope of protection of patents in the UK. Four months on, the dust is beginning to settle a little and we now have a handful…
The Federal Court of Justice held in the present case that it was not relevant whether it is possible to escape a declaration of nullity due to added matter under certain circumstances, as recently affirmed in FCJ X ZR 161/12 Wundbehandlungsvorrichtung, since the subject matter in dispute was directly and unambiguously derivable from the originally…
This case concerns the relationship between two co-owners of a patent and in particular the issue of whether and under what conditions one co-owner can claim compensation in respect of the use of the invention by the other co-owner. The FCJ held that an assessment of the potential claim of a co-owner for compensation for…
