Looking back at this blog in 2018 from a bird’s eye perspective, I cannot resist the feeling that one of the most popular topics has been musing about the UPC’s future and speculating about the timing and the outcome of the decision by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) on Dr. Stjerna’s constitutional complaint. Even Stjerna himself has…
In its judgment of 25 July 2018 (Case C-121/17 Teva v. Gilead), the CJEU had its latest say on the interpretation of article 3 (a) of Regulation (EC) 469/2009 concerning the Supplemental Protection Certificates for medicinal products (the “SPC Regulation”). In particular, it concluded that article 3 (a): “[…] must be interpreted as meaning that…
Setting the record straight concerning the right to dependent claims under the EPC by Thomas Wyder and Stephan Steinmüller (Hoffmann Eitle) EPO Examiners sometimes urge Applicants to delete dependent claims considered to relate to “unsearched subject-matter” after having raised a unity a posteriori objection. We are investigating in how far the EPC justifies forcing an…
The Administrative Council of the European Patent Office must act and support president António Campinos in initiatives to end ‘the persistent atmosphere of intimidation’ at the EPO. That is the message of a letter which was sent to the heads of delegation of the Administrative Council (AC) earlier this week by the EPO-FLIER Team, ‘a…
Over the past few years the pan-European and parallel national patent litigation based on Eli Lilly’s pemetrexed patent has attracted considerable attention, as it has resulted in a number of diverse land mark decisions in relation to the doctrine of equivalence, as evidenced by the various posts on the Kluwer Patent Blog. By way of…
Whilst it is highly debatable whether the EU Withdrawal Agreement will get through the UK Parliament, the chances are that if any revised deal is struck later, the IP provisions will remain unchanged. (The Johnson brothers, and even Jacob Rees-Mogg are unlikely to be terribly exercised about matters such as the continued application post- 31…
For the first time, the European Patent Office has revoked a patent as a consequence of amended regulations which exclude plants and animals obtained by an essentially biological breeding process for patentability. The revocation, last month, concerned European patent number 1.597.965, covering a type of broccoli adapted to make harvesting easier. The patent was granted…
Today, after nine months of waiting, the decision of the UK Supreme Court in the pregabalin litigation was handed down. Like Brexit and the nation, it is clear that the Supreme Court Judges were divided on several crucial issues. In this post, we will not attempt to give a detailed analysis of the decision but…
The assignor of a patented network security logging device that “broadcast” network security threats was not estopped from initiating an inter partes review of the patent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has determined. However, the court also ruled that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in invalidated some of the patent’s…
The European Patent Office and representatives of 14 German law firms who had expressed concerns about EPO patent quality earlier this year in a letter, have started a “constructive dialogue”. The representatives had a meeting with the new President of the European Patent Office, António Campinos, and other EPO officials, on 16 October 2018 in…
