Following inter partes review of several claims of a patent directed to a trigger/seal mechanism for a beverage container, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board properly applied the broadest reasonable in construing a connection limitation disclosed in the challenged claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has decided. The Board’s construction was…
For many years, Spanish Courts have considered the “problem & solution approach” developed by the European Patent Office (“EPO”) to be a very useful tool for the purpose of trying to make an objective assessment of inventive activity. Unlike in other jurisdictions such as Germany, in Spain this method has become the natural instrument used…
A judgment of 13 July 2017 from the Spanish Supreme Court (Civil Chamber) has highlighted the importance of taking the fine pencil when examining novelty. The decision stemmed from a judgment of 12 September 2014 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15), which had declared patent ES 2.344.241 invalid due to lack of novelty….
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s construction of the term “body” disclosed in multiple claims of a downhole drilling tool patent has been reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit as unreasonably overbroad and contrary to descriptions in the patent’s specification. The Board’s rejection of the challenged claims following inter partes…
A data sequence can only be regarded as a product directly obtained by a patent-protected process if it has tangible technical properties that are directly imparted on it by this method, and if the data sequence itself can therefore be appropriate subject-matter of a product patent. The representation of an experimental result obtained by a…
In China, judges handling patent litigations often experience difficulties in claim construction and infringement determination due to the lack of technical backgrounds. Although forensic appraisals were then widely adopted to help judges identify professional facts, some downsides were observed in the technical appraisal system. As for the expert auxiliary system, it is playing a more…
For the first time, the Spanish Supreme Court made far-reaching observations on key issues of the assessment of inventive step and, in particular, on a) the reformulation of the “objective technical problem” as defined in the patent’s specification, b) the limits to the combination of prior art documents and c) the professional qualifications required for…
Substantial evidence supported a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision finding a patent for an eyewear retention device unpatentable as obvious, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. A prior art device created by a fisherman and described in a newspaper article made use of a “resilient” retainer—as claimed by the…
In March our partner Hetti Hilge reported on a preliminary injunction by which the Federal Patent Court granted Merck an interlocutory compulsory license for Merck’s HIV drug Isentress in the light of Shionogi’s Raltegravir patent EP 1 422 218 (link). The compusory license has now been confirmed in the second instance PI proceedings by the…
Earlier this year, the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court rendered judgment in a patent case between Carl Freudenberg and Stadsing (SH2017.T-14-14S). Carl Freudenberg was the holder of a patent for a mop cover for a cleaning device (DK/EP 1 704 808). Stadsing conceded infringement if the patent-in-suit were held to be valid. Carl Freudenberg argued…
