The federal district court in Chicago did not err in dismissing a patent infringement suit filed by Maxon, LLC against several smart television manufacturers on the ground that the asserted patents—describing an electronic means of increasing user control over subscription entertainment content for smart TVs—were invalid as directed to an abstract idea that lacked an…

Other than ex parte (evidentiary) seizures, ex parte preliminary injunctions are considered a rare phenomenon in the field of patent law in the Netherlands. The burden for obtaining an ex parte injunction is high and the allegedly infringing party could have filed a protective letter. Very recently the Dutch patent court in The Hague has…

In one of the saga of cases that involved Societé des Produits Nestlé and companies that are trying to market capsules compatible with Nescafé’s Dolce Gusto system, the defendant alleged, among other arguments, that some of the patents asserted were null due to a lack of inventive step. The case was handled by Commercial Court…

by Steven Willis and Olivia Henry On 28 March 2018, the Court of Appeal overturned Henry Carr J’s finding that two Regeneron patents (EP (UK) 1 360 287 and EP (UK) 2 264 163) were insufficient. The judgment is an important reminder of the importance of taking the nature of the invention into account when…

On October 8, 2017, the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council jointly issued a special opinion on the reform of drug and medical device approval system (“Innovation Opinion”). The Innovation Opinion together with an earlier China Food and Drug Administration (“CFDA”) document (“Circular No. 55”) issued in May 2017 (collectively “Reform Opinion”), propose that…

Two final decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board—each finding that certain apparatus claims of a wireless communication network owned by DSS Technology Management were invalid as obvious—have been reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, because the Board failed to provide a sufficient explanation for its findings, and a…