The Dutch part of EP 119 – allegedly essential to the UMTS standard – was found to be obvious over the latest draft of the UMTS standard pre-priority date read in conjunction with a document of a UMTS Working Group proposing changes thereto. The skilled person would read these together and so be confronted with…
The longstanding social unrest at the European Patent Office (EPO) seems to be heading for a climax. After years of tensions and conflicts with the trade unions, Boards of Appeal and others, EPO president Benoît Battistelli, criticized for his ‘tyrannical’ leadership, has now lost the crucial support of Jesper Kongsted, chairman of the EPO’s Administrative…
There will be no fee to opt out of the jurisdiction of the future Unified Patent Court (UPC). It had already been rumored for some time, but it has now been confirmed with the publication of the ‘Rules on UPC Court Fees and Recoverable Costs’. The document was agreed on in a meeting 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 most sensible option for the UK is to postpone the ratification of the UPC Agreement until the ‘Brexit’ referendum of 23 June 2016 has been held, according to Luke McDonagh, Lecturer in IP Law at City University London. Mc Donagh told Kluwer IP Law there is nervousness in the ‘very pro-EU IP Community in…
2015 was a year of continued stage setting in trade secrets law. With several developments on both the civil and criminal side, Russell Beck looks back at 2015 and analyzes noteworthy case law and legislation both in the U.S. and abroad, analyzing topics such as: the latest development regarding the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,…
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…
by Bernward Zollner In a recent judgment announced on 27 October 2015 the German Bundesgerichtshof has issued a judgment which concerns joint nullity actions (X ZR 11/13 – Fugenband). Two nullity-plaintiffs had filed nullity actions at the German Bundespatentgericht seeking to nullify a patent. The German Bundespatentgericht had completely dis-missed both nullity actions. Against this…
The Federal Ministry of Justice of Germany has presented a first draft bill on the ratification of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement. It is accompanied by a draft bill to implement the Unitary Patent (UP) system at the national level. A spokesman of the German Ministry of Justice explained to Kluwer IP Law that…
A technology driven company whether large, medium or small and at every stage of its life cycle or development will need to consider the question of whether to patent or not to patent. Often a business chooses to refrain from filing a patent application at a particular point in time and instead relies on the…
