The Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office (“SPTO”) has submitted the draft of the Implementing Regulations of the new Spanish Patents Act, which is due to come into force on 1 April 2017, for public consultation. In general, anybody familiar with the Implementing Regulations to the European Patent Convention (“EPC”) would not have great difficulty navigating…
A patent application was properly denied on the basis that it covered the abstract idea of rules for playing a wagering game and used conventional steps of shuffling and dealing a standard deck of cards, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (In re Ray Smith and Amanda Tears Smith, March…
The U.K. Patents Court has held Warner-Lambert’s second medical use patent regarding the use of pregabalin for the treatment of pain invalid on the ground of insufficiency. Even if the patent were valid, the Court held that Actavis would not have infringed Warner-Lambert’s patent as a result of any “cross-label” use of their product sold…
Although patentability is generally regarded as a question of law per se, the actual technical disclosure of a prior art example was seen as a question of fact and therefore a matter for the first-instance court. The Federal Court of Justice saw itself bound to facts determined by the first-instance court, unless there are specific…
Europe is preparing for the launch of the new Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court (UPC). A provisional phase for the UPC is expected to start later this year, with a view to a full start of the system in the spring of 2017. In a series of articles, Kluwer IP Law explains the…
Case reported and summarised by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP The UK does not operate a system of automatically staying proceedings which concern validity of a European patent where there are ongoing opposition proceedings at the EPO. Nevertheless, the Court retains discretion to stay such proceedings, and a recent judgment of Mrs Justice Rose on 18…
President Benoît Battistelli of the European Patent Office (EPO), criticized for his harsh leadership, has survived the meeting of the supervisory Administrative Council (AC), but he has been put under high pressure to end the social unrest at the organization. During the meeting of the AC (the supervisory organ of the EPO with representatives of the…
Europe is preparing for the launch of the new Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court (UPC). A provisional phase for the UPC is expected to start later this year, with a view to a full start of the system in the spring of 2017. In a series of articles, Kluwer IP Law explains the…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dismissed an appeal of a district court’s motions to compel arbitration and stay proceedings (Let’s Go Aero, Inc. v. Cequent Performance Products, Inc., March 3, 2016, Taranto, R.). A ruling on arbitrability would be advisory as to the district court’s order. A full summary of this…
The Bulgarian Patent Office refused to issue a patent for an invention claimed as a medical use because the subject matter constituted a method for treatment of the human body and therefore it was unpatentable under Art. 7(2) of the Bulgarian Patents and Utility Models Registration Act (“PUMRA”). The decision of the Patent Office was…
