On 13 October 2015, the Law Commission of the United Kingdom published the final report of the project to reform the law of unjustified (groundless) threats. The report is the culmination of years of work, which started in 2012. After a consultation round, a report was published in 2014 and 18 recommendations for reform were…
by Dominic Adair Day 2 of AIPPI’s 2015 Global Congress in Rio brought with it the Pharma Sessions: trade marks, personalised medicine and two sessions with a local flavour – technology transfer under the Brazilian Government’s PDP programme (promoting local laboratories) and whether the practice of Brazil’s regulatory authority (ANVISA) to challenge patents prior to…
by Dominic Adair Following an exciting opening ceremony on Sunday evening featuring Brazilian dancers, caipirinha cocktails and black bean soup, the AIPPI’s 2015 World Congress in Rio de Janeiro began in earnest yesterday. The agenda for day 1 started with the customary round of Executive Committee meetings (followed by opportunities for a networking lunch) and…
The Court held that a certain means does not relate to an essential element of the invention just because it is used for a step in the method preceding the patented steps of the method. Even where this is necessary in order to apply the method, no contributory infringement of the patent can be established….
An inventor and holder of a patent for a “smokeless pipe” could not pursue a lawsuit against the United States in the Court of Federal Claims based on allegations that various private persons had infringed his patent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The inventor identified no law that permitted…
Draft rules for the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) will be discussed during the next meeting of the UPC Preparatory Committee on 19 October 2015. Together with these rules, a Memorandum of Operation will be introduced regarding the proposed legal and operational structure of the Centre. Sam Granata,…
As in other jurisdictions patentees in Swiss patent disputes often rely on the so called action by stages approach, which allows patentees to demand disclosure of information and financial accounting before the proceedings progress to the actual claim for lost profits, infringer’s profits or a royalty fee. In a recently published decision dated 25 August…
Secessionist pressure grows in Catalonia, after regional elections on 27 September 2015 (qualified as an informal referendum on independence) were won by supporters of an independent Catalonia. In Scotland supporters of independence have been far from silenced since they lost a referendum on the same issue last year. Kluwer IP Law found the following article…
Article 118 of the EPC (entitled “Unity of the European patent application or European patent”) states that: “[…] the text of the application or patent shall be uniform for all designated Contracting States, unless this Convention provides otherwise.” Like other Articles such as Article 2.2, 14.3, 43.1, 130.1 or 148.1, Article 118 follows the logic…
Since the scope of an amended patent claim was not substantially similar to the scope of the original claim, the patentee was not entitled to infringement damages for the period prior to the amendment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled (R+L Carriers, Inc. v. Qualcomm, Inc., September 17, 2015, O’Malley,…
