The draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and the UK, which was published by the European Commission on 28 February 2018, provides for continued protection in the UK of registered or granted IP rights. According to article 50 (1) of the draft agreement, the holder of a EU trade mark, design or plant variety right,…
A Spanish patents court rules for the first time on the sometimes blurry line dividing “discoveries” and “inventions”. The Court found that a method for prenatal diagnosis based on the discovery that sufficient fetal DNA can also be detected in maternal serum or plasma is a non-patentable discovery, because it lacks any “additional technical teaching”…
As published in previous blogs, on 1 April 2017 a new Patents Act came into force in Spain which has modernized Spanish patent law. For example, the new Law got rid of “non-examined” patents. As a result, since 1 April 2017 all patents are examined, which has aligned the examination procedure with the standards of…
Substantial evidence supported the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s finding that an inter partes review petitioner failed to show that a patent owned by Thales Visionix—claiming a method for tracking motion relative to a moving platform—was not obvious over a prior art patent combined with two additional references, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…
The German constitutional complaint against ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement is on the list of cases to be decided by the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany this year. A preview of the cases was published today here (in German). The rapporteur for the case (Az. 2 BvR 739/17) is Professor Dr….
What can people, in particular citizens of Munich and Bavaria, do if they feel that elementary constitutional rights are infringed, not somewhere abroad and far away, but literally next door, at the Isar river banks or in the Pschorrhöfe building? Unfortunately, this is no rhetorical question. If such things happen in the jurisdiction of German…
Here at the Kluwer Patent Blog we are thrilled to have had the opportunity to interview Benjamin May on collecting evidence in patent cases and have him address issues on the power of seize and search orders, the harmonisation efforts of Directive 2004/48/EC and the future of seizures, prior to his presentation at C5’s Pharma…
Despite the uncertainty about what will happen in Germany with the Unified Patent Court Agreement, the UK is heading for ratification of the UPCA and preparations for the court are going on. In the UK, the legislative steps have been completed and it is expected the UK will complete all formalities by depositing its instrument…
Part II (- sorry, this will be a bit longer, but a lot has accumulated recently…) How does the EPO in 2018 fare with regard to the criterion “expert, well supported and motivated staff”? To what extent is it already reality, and to what “vision” in the sense of fancy? In my personal view, it…
Different countries have different constitutional requirements before they can ratify an international agreement like the UPCA. Some, like France, can ratify first, and sort out the legislation required to comply with the Treaty later, whilst other countries like the UK and Germany, do it the other way around, passing relevant legislation first, with formal ratification following…
