The Hanover Trade Fair is the world’s leading trade fair for industrial technology and will take place between 7 and 11 April 2014. The CeBIT is the world’s largest computer expo and will be held between 10 and 14 March 2014. With regard to these important trade fairs and many more taking place in Hanover,…
In a recent decision (case no. 4A_142/2013), the Swiss Federal Supreme Court had to decide whether one of the non-permanent judges of the Swiss Federal Patent Court, a Swiss patent attorney, was obliged to recuse himself due to activities of one of his colleagues in his patent law firm in connection with a trademark matter…
One of the “co-lateral” damages expected from the latest Pixar Films’ type of productions coming from the European Commission (the European patent with unitary effect and the Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) fostered by the Commission behind the scenes) is the increase of patent applications filed before national patent offices. Stakeholders are growing concerned that the…
On 1 January 2014 the New Regulation (EU) No 608/2013 concerning customs enforcement of intellectual property rights will enter into force. Patent practitioners should note that national utility models and future unitary patents are also covered by this new Regulation. The “simplified proceedings” which have allowed customs to destroy goods without a prior court decision…
Under the legal principle of forfeiture of claims a patentee can deprive himself of claims for patent infringement if he asserts them in legal proceedings at such a late stage (time factor) that the infringer from an objective perspective could trust that he would not anymore be subjected to the claims and has made dispositions…
In 1984 Albert Hedegaard submitted a national patent application to the Danish Patent Office concerning an air-assisted device for spraying crops with pesticides. Hardi International A/S filed an opposition against the patent application with the Danish Patent Office. When finally granted in 1996, the patent had been substantially limited and the claims had been amended…
As my colleague Rik Lambers, from Brinkhof, reported in the blog he posted last Thursday (12 December 2013), that day was a big day for Supplementary Protection Certificate (“SPC“) aficionados, since the European Court of Justice (“ECJ“) published three new judgments that will further feed the long-running saga of SPC decisions. Readers will no doubt…
SPC judgments galore in Luxembourg this morning. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) provided its judgments in the Eli Lilly case (C‑493/12), in the Actavis case (C‑443/12), and in the Georgetown case (C‑484/12). The CJEU’s Medeva judgment (case C-322/10), and AG Trstenjak’s opinion in that case, raised burning questions on the interpretation…
By Bernward Zollner Every now and then it is suggested that a picture or pictures be incorporated in a mo-tion of a complaint against the defendant requesting defendant to cease and desist from a certain activity (being a patent or a copyright infringement) so that defendant’s activity by described more clearly. A recent decision of…
Different views from the EPO and Germany on the same case 1. Introduction Functional features in patent claims may provide protection not only for specific embodiments disclosed in the patent specification, but also for undisclosed (future) embodiments. A classic example is a claim of the format “An inhibitor of protein P for the treatment of…
