A recent Ruling of 9 September 2016 from the Court of Appeal of Barcelona (Section 15) illustrates the risks of defendants taking a “wait and see” attitude in the context of proceedings aimed at liquidating damages. This decision was handed down following an appeal filed by a patentee against a decision from Commercial Court number…
To ensure the continued development of medicinal products which are the result of enormous R&D costs the supplementary protection certificate (‘SPC’) was introduced into EU law in 1993 with the entry into force of the SPC Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No 1768/92). After the Ukraine’s declaration of independence, hard work on adopting new legislation began…
This question was tackled by the Full Federal Court of Australia in Kafataris v Davis [2016] FCAFC 134. The patent in suit related to an alternative manner of playing card games. The player could play a primary game while at the same time exercising betting options on a secondary or auxiliary game, either separately from…
Media attention at the English High Court today may have been focussed on the Article 50 challenge but for many patent lawyers operating in the life sciences sector, of equal or greater importance was the handing down of the long-awaited judgment in the Lyrica appeal. To recap briefly, Pfizer was the owner of a patent…
The Preparatory Committee for the Unified Patent Court will publish a revised time plan for setting up the UPC and Unitary Patent system ‘in due course’. The Committee announced this after its 18th meeting, Monday 10 October 2016 in Paris, where it ‘took the opportunity to discuss the road ahead given the uncertainty that has…
Is there a way out of the deadlock created by the Brexit vote and can the Unitary Patent system still go live next year as planned? According to Wouter Pors, partner of Bird & Bird in The Hague, industry clearly prefers a UP system including the UK and attempts are being made to convince the…
Slovenia is expected to deposit its instrument of ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement with the Council of the European Union soon, bringing the number of ratifying countries to twelve. However, due to the Brexit vote and recent statements of UK prime minister Theresa May about what this vote should mean for the UK,…
In 2010 the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal took the badge of Swiss type claims from patentees (G 02/08), and since then they cannot use it anymore. Six years later two cases on (infringement of) Swiss type / second medical use claims are knockin’ on the Dutch Supreme Court’s door. While the Enlarged Board put…
On Sunday, 2.10.2016, the Guardian wrote: Controlling immigration would be the key basis for departure, May said. The government would seek access to the EU’s single market if possible, she said, adding: “But let me be clear. We are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration again. And we are…
In this case the FCJ expanded on earlier case law regarding claim construction and in particular on the issue of whether a certain embodiment would fall within the scope of protection by way of equivalence if the specification in the patent described various options, but only incorporated one of those options into the claim wording….
