(Indirect) infringement, Enforcement, Extent of Protection, Injunction, Scope of protection, Second Medical Use, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

On 28 May 2015, the English Court of Appeal issued a ruling in the on-going Lyrica saga which, although almost certainly not representing the last word on the topic, took a markedly different approach to the correct construction of Swiss form claims to the first instance judge, Arnold J. One thing there does appears to…

(Indirect) infringement, Exceptions to patentability, Pharma, Second Medical Use, Switzerland

(MLL Legal Ltd.)/

By Mark Schweizer, Reinhard Oertli and Simon Holzer The Swiss lawmaker plans to introduce a new exemption from patent protection for physicians and pharmacies. The new exemptions aims to protect physicians and pharmacies from being involved in patent disputes concerning second medical use claims according to the EPC 2000 (purpose-limited product Claims). From Swiss-type claims…

Spain, SPC

(Clifford Chance)/

The legendary deficient regulation of supplementary protection certificates (“SPCs”) has caused the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (the “SPTO”) and Spanish Courts to struggle as to whether or not the “restitutio in integrum” procedure available to patents is also applicable to SPCs. The High Court of Justice of Madrid, in a recent Judgment of 22…

Case Law, EPC, European Union

(V.O.)/

A panel of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO rejected a request to replace the EBA chairman for suspected partiality. The reasons for allowing such a request in decision R19/12 had since been removed because the chairman had discontinued all his managerial activities in the senior management committees of the EPO. Under…

EPC, European Union, Unitary Patent

(Eubelius)/ /1 Comment

In March 2015 the European Patent Office presented two proposals to the Select Committee for the level of renewal fees of the future Unitary Patent. The proposals were presented as the “Top 4” and “Top 5” models, i.e. equivalent to the national renewal fees of the 4, respectively 5 Member States where European patents are…

Belgium

(Eubelius)/

The European patent community and especially the people involved in the preparation of the Unified Patent Court were stirred up in March 2015 by an action launched before the Belgian Constitutional Court. On 10 March 2015 the Belgian non for profit association ESOMA (European Software Market Association) had launched a nullity action against the Belgian…

(Indirect) infringement, United States of America

(Foley&Lardner LLP)/

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its remand decision in Akamai Technologies, Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc., and this time affirmed the district court decision that Limelight was not liable for infringement of Akamai’s patents because Limelight had not performed each step of the method claims and was not responsible for…

European Union, Hungary, Unitary Patent, UPC

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Concerns that inexperienced judges will do unpredictable or crazy things at the Unified Patent Court are exaggerated, according to Bird & Bird partner Wouter Pors. Last month he gave a lecture to future UPC judges at the Budapest Training Centre as part of a week of training on the issue of infringement. He wrote this…

European Union, UPC

/ /1 Comment

The €80 opt-out fee for the Unified Patent Court (UPC) as proposed by the Preparatory Committee will be a very heavy burden for hard-pressed patent departments.  They are being asked to pay a significant fee for NOT using the new system. ’How perverse can this be?’ says Bristows partner Alan Johnson in answer to questions…