Two draft bills implementing the UPCA in the German legal system have recently been proposed by the German Ministry of Justice (BMJV) and shall be considered in the following. The first is the ratification law itself consisting of only three articles. The second one is a relatively complex draft bill mainly amending the German 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…
SH 2016.T-4-13S-SH2016.T.4.13 In continuation of the Europe-wide PI cases a few years back, the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court recently rendered judgment in a patent case between AstraZeneca and Krka. As the reader may recall, AstraZeneca was the holder of patent no. DK/EP 1 020 461 for a magnesium salt of the active substance esomeprazol…
There has been some confusion in Germany as to whether exhibiting products and services on a trade show qualifies as an infringing act or not. Most prominently, two decisions of the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) have denied a general rule that any presentation of goods or services on a trade show justifies…
Case reported and summarised by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP Mr Justice Carr has issued an interesting interim judgment regarding the jurisdiction of the English Court to grant negative declarations in relation to patent applications before the EPO (Fujifilm Kyowa Biologics v Abbvie Biotechnology [2016] EWHC 425 (Pat)). The case concerns an application by Fujifilm Kyowa…
In our blog of 31 October 2013 (“Groucho Marx, fairness and the opting-out fee“) we explained that Groucho Marx once sent a telegram to the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills with the following text: “Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.”…
Infringement claims against cell phone carrier T-Mobile and its vendors, Nokia and Ericsson, concerning four patents for cell phone infrastructure equipment were properly barred by the doctrine of patent exhaustion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The lower court’s order granting the defendants’ motion for summary judgment was therefore affirmed…
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…
