Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my interest, or rather my passion, for several Patent Law topics, including notably SEPs (see notably here, here and here), proof of infringement (see notably here, here and here) and UPC (see notably here, here and here). So far, UPC has not (yet) been the scene…
Introduction On 17 July 2023, the English Court of Appeal handed down its decision in a dispute between J.C. Bamford (JCB) and Manitou about the confidentiality of information disclosed in the course of litigation between JCB and Manitou relating to the validity and infringement of certain of JCB’s patents. At the heart of the confidentiality…
Many readers of this blog are familiar with the French saisie-contrefaçon, which consists of the seizure of allegedly infringing products and all related documents, but requires a writ of summons within one month of the saisie (e.g., here). Few of the same readers have probably heard of the protective seizure (“saisie conservatoire”), which allows similar…
It is now almost a year since the new confidentiality regime for patent disputes in Germany entered into force. Since then, confidentiality requests have become a standard procedure in German patent litigation. Courts and counsel have translated the legal requirements into manageable routines. The Munich Regional Court even published guidance on how to proceed with…
The Spanish Supreme Court rules in a patent ownership and trade secret dispute where a company had filed a patent application which named as inventor the husband of the company’s founder, who had previously led an R&D project funded by a competitor. The Court sets a high standard for ownership claims and, at the same…
The transposition of the 2016 directive on trade secrets into French law by the law of 31 July 2018 and its implementing decree could have led to the expectation of difficulties with the so-called “saisies-contrefaçons”. The main one to remember is undoubtedly the application of the new article R. 153-1 of French Commercial Code to…
Barcelona Commercial Courts have a well-deserved reputation for being dynamic and creative. Not surprisingly, it was Judge Ferrándiz, already retired from the Supreme Court, who back in 1993, when he was sitting at Section 15 of the Court of Appeal of Barcelona, had the idea of specializing that Section on a small number of commercial…
The transposition of the “trade secrets” directive in France allowed the introduction of new legal tools that apply to ex parte investigation measures and infringement seizures (“saisie-contrefaçon”). We propose here a panorama of the first decisions in this area. When it transposed the so-called “Trade Secrets” Directive (EU) 2016/943 of 8 June 2016, French Law…
Access to seized goods and data should be denied in preliminary proceedings if the seized material contains trade secrets and there is a serious chance that the patent will be held invalid. Case date: 01 February 2019 Case number: C/09/557229 / KG ZA 18-771 Court: Provisions Judge of the District Court of The Hague A full summary of…
The Court confirmed that a District court, not specialised in patent matters, does have relative jurisdiction to decide a motion to produce exhibits for determining patent infringement. In order to positively decide a motion to produce exhibits, (threat of) infringement should be made plausible, but the threshold for plausibility is relatively low. Further, technical details…
