In July 2017, the Patents Court of Barcelona handed down a decision finding that “Swiss-type” claims were affected by the Reservation made by Spain when it ratified the European Patent Convention (“EPC”), whereby European patents, insofar as they confer protection on chemical or pharmaceutical products “as such“, shall be ineffective in Spain. In particular, the…
Four leading patent law firms in Germany – Grünecker, Hoffmann Eitle, Maiwald and Vossius & Partner – have published an open letter expressing ‘great concern’ about the developments at the European Patent Office, particularly ‘the modifications to the incentive systems for the examination of patent applications’. The ‘overreaching desire for high productivity’ has led to…
by Claire Phipps-Jones On 24 April 2018, Roger Wyand QC (sitting as a deputy judge in the High Court) held that a patent belonging to Freebit was invalid and not infringed by Bose’s flexible in-ear earpieces. The key points of interest in the decision concerned construction and the fact evidence relied on in relation to…
Establishing a unitary SPC is one of the recommendations of the study carried out by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition for the European Commission. Either an (existing or a future) EU authority or the European Patent Office can be charged with granting these unitary SPCs. According to the study, the choice between…
In a judgment in a low-key dispute concerning the infringement of a utility model, the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Spain’s most influential patents court) held that the scope of protection of a two-part claim was determined by its characterising portion, and not by the preamble portion. This finding, which should apply to patents as well,…
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s conclusion following inter partes review that a cellular communications patent directed to frequency hopping owned by Intellectual Ventures I LLC was invalid and anticipated was not supported by substantial evidence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had held. Among other things, the Board erred in invalidating…
The Court of Appeal dismissed Boehringer Ingelheim’s application for permission to appeal the first instance Patents Court decision that EP (UK) 1,379,220 lacked inventive step. The Court of Appeal also considered and overturned the existing judicial guidance on granting permission to appeal in patent matters. Case date: 16 December 2016 Case number: A3 2016 0271 Court: Court of…
The FCJ held that: a) An objection by one party can lead to the petitioner being required to demonstrate a legitimate interest in the inspection of the files of a patent nullity procedure, but only if the opposing party demonstrates an interest of its own which may stand in the way of the inspection. b)…
Whilst being wary of placing too much emphasis on statistics (the phrase “lies, damn lies and statistics” comes to mind), the authors have seen figures which suggest that the last ten years have consistently seen English patent litigation outcomes which are overall less favourable to the patentee than their opponents. That is until 2017, when…
As most readers will know, yesterday the European Commission published a proposal to amend Regulation 469/2009 concerning the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products (the “SPC Regulation”) aimed at introducing a so-called “manufacturing exemption for export purposes” (in short, a “manufacturing waiver”). The rationale behind it is that the introduction of this new exemption to…
