by Claire Phipps-Jones The Patents Court has recently determined two questions relating to groundless threats: first, can a threat made on the basis of a patent application be justified once the patent has granted, and second, if so, when should a trial relating to such a threat be heard? The decision addressing both issues was…
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board did not err in affirming a patent examiner’s rejection of three claims of an IPCom patent on a system for allowing access rights to cell phone channels, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled. Because all three claims were anticipated by the GSM 04.60 Specifications,…
An EPO board held that observations filed by third parties during inter partes appeal must be disregarded by the board, unless they concern amendments during opposition or appeal, in which case the board has discretion whether or not to consider the observations in the examination of the amendments. Also when a party to the appeal…
The Danish Maritime and Commercial Court recently rendered judgement (SH2016.T-5-14) in a matter between Ametek Denmark A/S and the intellectual property consultancy Zacco Denmark A/S. As an external patent agent, Zacco had assisted Ametek in filing several patent applications regarding Ametek’s invention of a temperature calibration system. However, in an international patent application and in…
As readers know well, one of the issues carefully considered by courts around the world when examining inventive activity is the qualifications and experience of the experts designated by the parties to illustrate to the court what the understanding of the hypothetical “person skilled in the art” would have been on the priority date of…
As the European Commission has recently asked organizations to submit comments to the Commission consultation on an effective insolvency framework within the EU (“Consultation”) and the issue is also discussed in the forthcoming AIPPI conference to be held in Milan, I thought that it would be interesting to write a few words on the security…
The UK’s Intellectual Property Office has published a statement on the future of IP law after the Brexit vote of 23 June 2016, saying there will be ‘no immediate changes’ regarding the Unitary Patent system. In its document ‘IP and BREXIT: The facts‘, the UK IPO writes: ‘there has been much speculation on the future of many intellectual…
The end of July traditionally brings a flurry of patents judgments from the English Courts. This year was no exception, hence the large number of posts in the last few days. Among this year’s flurry was a decision handed down by the Court of Appeal on 27 July 2016 in Hospira v Genentech ([2016] EWCA…
by Gregory Bacon The English courts are not averse to determining disputes concerning foreign rights, including intellectual property rights. Readers will no doubt be aware of the recent case between Actavis and Eli Lilly in which Actavis sought declarations of non-infringement in relation to the UK and foreign designations of Eli Lilly’s European patent concerning…
by Rachel Mumby Those readers who are unfamiliar with the excessively optimistic outlook of Mr Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dicken’s novel David Copperfield, would be forgiven for having had to look up the word “Micawberism” on reading it in the judgment of Floyd J (as he then was) in Blacklight Power Inc. v The Comptroller-General…
