The parliament in the Netherlands will hold a debate on the ‘deteriorating social situation’ at the European Patent Office. The recent dismissal of a SUEPO trade union leader in The Hague was one of the issues triggering a request for the debate. MP Sharon Gesthuizen of the socialist SP received support for her request from…
On 21 October 2016, the Federal Court of Australia handed down its judgment in the case of Apotex Pty Ltd v Warner-Lambert Company LLC (No 2) [2016] FCA 1238 (FCA Judgment). Justice John Nicholas found in favour of Warner-Lambert, both upholding the validity of its patent claims and granting final injunctions restraining infringement by Apotex….
The unicameral parliament of Lithuania has adopted two laws concerning the future Unitary Patent system. A bill on ratification of the UPC Agreement and a bill on the establishment of a Nordic-Baltic regional division of the UPC were approved on 3 Novermber 2017. They will enter into force on 1 July 2017, according to the…
In my latest Kluwer post I wrote about the confusion caused by the most recent decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court concerning the doctrine of equivalence. This confusion seems to have confused me as well. With respect to the background of the decision, it was actually the technical judge’s expert opinion, which affirmed an infringement of…
An EPO board of appeal decided that it had the discretion to admit a late filed document, even though the opposition division had exercised its discretion not to admit the document. In this respect the board diverged from T 2102/08. The board held that it may be confronted with additional facts (submissions) and different circumstances…
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board properly found during inter partes review (IPR) that two claims of a patent directed to a mechanism for controlling the operation of a downhole drill string were invalid as anticipated by a prior art reference, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has decided. The court rejected…
An invention is considered to involve an inventive step pursuant to Sec 1 Para 1 of the Austrian Patent Act (which corresponds to Art 56 EPC) if it is obvious to the skilled person based on prior art. This is not already the case when the skilled person could arrive at the invention based on…
In the middle of the turmoil caused by Brexit and the US elections tiny Switzerland (apropos, a country with an old democracy and some experience in implementing problematic election results as well) tries to find its way as to how to approach patent infringments by equivalent means. In a recent decision, the Swiss Supreme Court…
Introduction by Brian Cordery and Rik Lambers “As many readers will know, the English High Court ruled on a legal challenge as to whether the government could trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without parliamentary approval. The post below by Maria Kendrick explains that the Judges ruled broadly that parliament is supreme in UK constitutional…
by Steven Willis Yesterday, the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in Idenix v Gilead [2016] EWCA Civ 1089, a dispute involving SOVALDI® (sofosbuvir), which is sold by Gilead as a treatment for chronic hepatitis C infection in adults. At first instance, Arnold J held (in an epic 621 paragraph judgment) that Idenix’s Patent…
