The Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court are likely to boost trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) in the European Single Market for technology. This is one of the conclusions in an EPO report which was published on 14 November 2017. The study ‘Patents, trade and foreign direct investment in the European Union’, carried…
On 23 October 2017, IP Australia released the draft Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2017 for public comment. The purpose of the Bill is to implement the Government’s response to the Productivity Commission’s recommendations on Australia’s IP Arrangements (our coverage of the Government’s response can be found…
When the Kingdom of Spain joined what were then called the European Communities (the “EC”) in 1986, it had to approve a new Patents Act which sought to adapt Spain’s patent law to the standards required by the EC. For example, for the purpose of avoiding that an infringer could invoke a “cover” patent or…
The future president of the European Patent Office, Antonio Campinos, has welcomed the open letter of the Union Syndicale Fédérale (USF), the federation of trade unions in the European Public Service, and written he is looking forward to cooperating with the USF, of which the EPO trade union SUEPO The Hague and Berlin are affiliates….
Last year, Actavis, Teva and Mylan (“Actavis”) sought revocation in the English Patents Court of two patents relating to tadalafil, which is sold by Eli Lilly (“Lilly”) as the active ingredient in CIALIS® to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. As is the usual course, ICOS (the patentee) and Lilly (the exclusive licensee) subsequently…
All Union law arguments against the Unitary Patent system, that are now on the table again because of the German constitutional complaint, have already been rejected in the recent past. Wouter Pors, partner of Bird & Bird, has said this in an interview with Kluwer IP Law. Pors hopes the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) will…
The “representative” registered with the Swiss Patent Register for the Swiss part of a European patent does not constitute a legal representative within the meaning of the Code of Civil Procedure. Consequently, court documents must not be served to such “representative”, but must be sent by the official channels of judicial assistance in civil matters…
The federal district court in Wilmington, Delaware, did not err in finding that several claims of a patent for preparing a stable formulation of the antibiotic compound ertapenem owned by Merck Sharp & Dohme were invalid as obvious, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. Substantial record evidence supported the district…
When will the Unified Patent Court open its doors and the Unitary Patent (UP) become available? The German constitutional complaint against ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) has dashed expectations that the UP system could launch at the end of this year. Considerable delays and even the end of the system in its…
Allergan’s assignment of the patents on one of its blockbuster drugs to an American Indian tribe in an attempt to dismiss a USPTO inter partes review (IPR) proceeding on “tribal sovereign immunity” grounds has shaken up the patent bar – with some dismissing this as, at most, a temporary loophole and others saying “why didn’t…
