Proxyconn, Inc. was able to show that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board erred in construing certain claims of a patent challenged by Microsoft Corporation in inter partes review petitions, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Microsoft Corporation v. Proxyconn, Inc., June 16, 2015, Prost, S.). A full summary of…
In a world of increasing legal complexity, it is a common ground – except in Luxembourg – that the lack of specialisation results in the administration of injustice rather than in the administration of justice. The President of Section 15 of the Barcelona Court of Appeal appeared to have this logic in mind when, in…
On 28 May 2015 the Eastern High Court of Denmark rendered judgment in a case between the two largest manufacturers of automatic milking systems, in which Lely had claimed damages from DeLaval International AB (Sweden) and its Danish subsidiary, DeLaval A/S for infringement in Denmark of the Danish part of a European patent. DeLaval, on…
The German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, FCJ) has issued the decision “Bildstrom” (judgment of 26 February 2015, docket no. X ZR 37/13) dealing with the patentability of a system and a method for displaying an image stream. The attacked patent EP 1474927 concerns a technical teaching for displaying an image stream, wherein at least…
An EPO board held that observations filed by third parties during inter parte appeal must be disregarded by the board, unless they concern amendments during opposition or appeal, in which case the board had discretion whether or not to consider the observations in the examination of the amendments. Also when a party to the appeal…
In this judgment the Court of Appeals Düsseldorf held that the manifest preparation of a product for a specific use which is covered by a use claim can be seen in information on the packaging and in the patient information provided with the pharmaceutical product to the end user. It confirms earlier case law in…
A patent applicant is not obliged to prove the industrial applicability of an invention. It is the Patent Office which must prove the lack thereof. A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
Arbitration courts established to resolve conflicts between patents and generic or reference medicaments do not have jurisdiction to decide on the validity of the patent, even when it is argued as a defence in an action for infringement. Transferring the authorization to introduce a generic medicament in the market to a third party is not,…
The seizure of evidence is part of every patent litigator’s (pre-trial) arsenal. To some extent this measure is harmonised by the Enforcement Directive (art. 6 Directive 2004/48/EC). However, it does not yet have the same fire power in every European state. To get a taste of the Dutch state of play, specifically what the threshold…
An accused party’s belief in the invalidity of a patent is not a defense to a claim that the party induced infringement of the patent, the U.S. Supreme Court has held. In a dispute between Commil USA and accused infringer Cisco Systems, the Court reversed a holding of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…
