Today it seems to be commonplace that without a patent system people would be less motivated to invest time and resources into making inventions that may foster technological progress. What is less clear is where the origins of this concept should be traced. Ancient Greece, which made so many contributions to knowledge, neglected the practical…
The Paris Court of Appeal clarified the conditions to be assessed by the Court in order to grant an interlocutory injunction pursuant to Article L. 615-3 of the French Intellectual Property Code. A summary of this case will be posted on http://www.KluwerIPCases.com
The numerus clausus of legally permissible pieces of evidence in the new Swiss Civil Procedure Code (CPC) – unlike in many other codes of civil procedure – does not provide for private expert opinions. Only court-appointed expert opinions are foreseen in the CPC. The question therefore arises, how the new Swiss Patent Court should deal…
By Stephan von Petersdorff-Campen Under paragraph 103 of the German Insolvency Act, an insolvency practitioner has the right to choose whether or not to honour existing contracts of the insolvent company. Does this right also apply for any patent licences granted by the insolvent company? The Regional Court Munich has ruled in a case in…
In a decision of 21 March 2012, the Cour d’Appel of Paris ruled on the issue of the appraisal which the French judge has to make when a request for a preliminary injunction against acts allegedly infringing a patent or an SPC is referred to him. Novartis AG is the holder and SAS Novartis Pharma is the…
For many years in Denmark, interlocutory injunction proceedings have been organized under the aegis of the bailiff’s department of the municipal courts. This has entailed a number of disadvantages, not least in relation to patent cases. In most other countries it is considered a necessary pre-requisite that the presiding judge in such proceedings has experience…
The Swiss Federal Supreme Court rendered its first decision regarding the new pre-trial taking of evidence proceeding in Switzerland’s new Code of Civil Procedure Law (ZPO) and in the Swiss Patent Act (PatG). More than a few patent practitioners feared that the Federal Supreme Court would confirm the challenged decision of the Court of Commerce…
One of the most controversial provisions of the Spanish Patents Act is article 137.2, which states “Where the measures requested involve restrictions on the defendant’s industrial or commercial activity, the judge shall, when deciding with respect thereto, fix the amount of the security by which the said defendant may at any time substitute the effectiveness…
About a month ago Rüdiger Pansch reported on the new “General Terms and Conditions” of the Regional Court of Munich in patent infringement matters (http://kluwerpatentblog.com/2012/03/20/patent-chambers-of-munich-district-court-decree-general-terms-and-conditions/). Now, also the Regional Court of Düsseldorf has put more elaborated advice for the parties in writing. In general, this new procedural order more or less goes along the well-established…
As in other jurisdictions, German Courts try to determine whether an invention is patentable over the prior art by looking at it through the eyes of the notional skilled person at the effective filing date of the patent at issue. In a decision pronounced on March 6, 2012 (docket X ZR 78/09), the German Federal…
