A company that claimed a competitor misappropriated its trade secrets involving invoicing and job productivity software could proceed on its Louisiana Uniform Trade Secrets Act (LUTSA) and some of its common law conversion claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled, reversing in part the district court’s dismissal of the claims. The…
Substantial evidence did not support the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s finding that patentee LiquidPower Specialty Products Inc. (“LSPI”) failed to establish nexus, and thus the PTAB erred in not weighing LSPI’s objective evidence of non-obviousness in its decision invalidating a patent related to polymers added to crude oil, the U.S. Court of Appeals for…
The fact that the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) requested the Bundespräsident not to proceed with ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement indicates that the complaint against the UPCA will be admitted for a decision. This is one of the observations of Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna, the Düsseldorf based IP specialist who is behind…
In a decision issued this summer, the Swiss Federal Patent Court had the opportunity to comment on the catalogue of grounds for invalidity which can be brought against a Swiss SPC. The Federal Patent Court issued a PI based on Genzyme Corporation’s Swiss SPC for sevelamer, although it was unclear whether the Swiss Institute of…
Back in 1993, the President of Section 15 of the Barcelona Court of Appeal, Justice José Ramón Ferrándiz (now retired from the Supreme Court), fostered the specialisation of the different Sections of that Court to various areas of private law. It was then decided that Section 15 would be the only competent Section to resolve…
The SPC system was introduced in the European Union in 1992 to compensate for the heavy penalties imposed on pharmaceutical research due to the curtailment in effective patent term resulting from time-consuming and costly regulatory review. As expressly noted in the Explanatory Memorandum to the original SPC Regulation (COM(90) 101 final-SYN 255), the legislative intent…
by Pat Treacy, Sophie Lawrance, Francion Brooks and Helena Connors Yesterday, the Court of Appeal handed down its highly anticipated appeal judgment in Unwired Planet v Huawei. The unanimous judgment dismissed Huawei’s appeal, confirming Mr Justice Birss’ first instance decision in relation to the FRAND licensing of standard-essential patents (“SEPs”). The Court of Appeal considered…
Supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) used to be granted in the European Union only for novel active ingredients, but not for new therapeutic applications of previously authorized active ingredients. While this practice fundamentally changed as a result of the CJEU’s landmark decision Neurim (C-130/11) of 19 July 2012, the scope of this ruling has given rise…
T0969/14 is the latest in a long line of decisions which make it clear that the EPO Boards of appeal will not accept late filed requests which could have been filed in first instance proceedings, whether or not the submission of such requests might be perceived as a procedural abuse. One of the consequences of…
The Federal Court of Justice confirmed that the value of the matter in dispute can be amended on appeal, including retroactively for the first instance, if new facts are divulged that command such an amendment. The determination of the value of the matter in dispute is important for a German court case, since it directly…
