An EPO board of appeal expressed its opinion that EBA case law implied that no further use should be made of the three-part “essentiality test” of T 331/87, for deciding whether removal of a feature from a claim complies with article 123(2) EPC. The only test endorsed by the EBA was the “gold standard”. The…
In this case, the Federal Court of Justice considered the value of a secondary indicium for a decision on inventive step. The FCJ confirmed that if an invention differs from the decades-old general practice in the relevant technical field, then this may be an auxiliary criterion supporting inventive step. A full summary of this case…
A board of appeal of the European patent office held that a decision to reject an opposition with grounds based on an improperly corrected version of the patent as granted maintains the text used in the decision to grant, without the corrections. A decision of the examining division to correct the text after grant by…
In the past decade, a new character of the patent theatre has made inroads into the case law of some EU Member States, “imported” from the so-called “EPO case law”. Its name is “plausibility”. The origin of the plausibility concept can be traced to Decision T 939/92 (AgrEvo), where the EPO’s Board of Appeals held…
The UK Parliament closed down for business yesterday, preceding the general elections of 8 June 2017. It means parliamentary approval of legislation which is necessary for UK ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement will be delayed. Inevitably, this will lead to postponement of the start of the Unitary Patent system as well. After earlier…
The Unitary Patent system adds to territorial fragmentation of patent law in Europe, rather than consolidating it, by leaving aside non-participating EU Member States. Also, it is based on rules in the Brussels I bis Regulation (BR) and the Unifed Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) which are not consistent, according to Dr. Michael C.A. Kant, expert…
The sunrise session of day 2 was on second medical use claims and the hot European topic of plausibility. Floyd LJ began with a potted history and explained that whereas plausibility can be raised in different invalidity contexts the overall point is that the scope of the claim needs to be justified by the technical…
Activities of Patent assertion entities (PAEs) in Europe are increasing dramatically and are encouraged by the Rules of Procedure of the upcoming Unified Patent Court, especially the possibility to obtain an EU wide injunction. This is argued by Intellectual Property 2 Innovate (IP2I), a coalition made up with nine companies ‘that create innovative products and…
In Germany, the winning party is able to recover a significant amount of its costs from the losing party. This cost reimbursement, which is based on a statutory fee schedule, depends on the value of the case. The amount of recoverable fees can be quite significant; the maximum in infringement proceedings would be around slightly…
The Fordham IP Conference in New York is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. As the conference heads into its second quarter-century, the programme and faculty are as impressive as ever. It remains a magnet for key opinion leaders from all areas of intellectual property. Whilst the rain poured down across Manhattan, the conference began…
