In its decision of 22 April*, the UK High Court (Mr Justice Arnold) has dismissed Nestec’s** claims that Dualit has infringed EP (UK) 2 103 236 (“the patent”) by supplying its own branded “NX Café Caps” coffee capsules which are compatible with Nestec’s Nespresso coffee machines, thus paving the way for new entrants into the…
On 12 April 2013, Mr Justice Arnold gave judgment in the English High Court in Resolution Chemicals Limited v H Lundbeck A/S ([2013] EWHC 739 (Pat)). Resolution (a generic supplier company) sought revocation of Lundbeck’s SPC/GB02/049 (the “SPC”) for escitalopram, alleging invalidity of the basic patent EP (UK) 0 347 066 (“the 066 patent”). Although…
The Federal Court of Justice in Germany held in its recent judgment of January 22, 2013 (court docket: X ZR 70/11) that to claim co-inventorship the contribution of the co-inventor need only be found in parts of the description of the patent and does not have to be found in the claims. The Court stated…
On 16 April 2013 the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) handed down a judgment dismissing the nullity actions filed by Spain and Italy against Council Decision 2011/167/EU, of 10 March 2011, whereby an enhanced cooperation procedure was approved relating to the creation of a unitary patent (joint cases C-274/11 and C-295/11). This decision has of…
Syngenta Limited (hereinafter referred to as “Syngenta”), a company governed by the laws of England and Wales, is the holder of European patent No. 0 382 375 entitled “Fungicides”. On 28 September 2009, it submitted to the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI; French Industrial Property Office) a request for limitation of a claim of the French designation of…
On April 15, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in one of the most controversial and publicized biotech patent cases, the “ACLU/Myriad” gene patenting case (formally, The Association For Molecular Pathology, et al. v. USPTO et al.). While it is nearly impossible to predict the outcome of a Supreme Court case from…
The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) addressed some interesting questions on patents protecting methods relating to data in the decision “MPEG-2-Videosignalcodierung” (“MPEG-2 video signal encoding”), judgement of 21 August 2012, X ZR 33/10. This all was round up by explanations on patent exhaustion in the context of test purchases. In simple terms, the…
In its “Leflunomid” decision of 24 July 2012 (Case X ZR 126/09), the FCJ declared a patent claim to be invalid which covered a combination of leflunomide and teriflunomide, on the grounds that it had long been known in the prior art (for 100 years) that some leflunomide spontaneously and unavoidably converts teriflunomide over time…
In a recent decision (case no. 4A_443/2012) the Swiss Federal Supreme Court had to deal with a dispute between the German Robert Bosch GmbH, which filed suit against the Swiss Federal Confederation based on the Swiss portion of EP 0 741 373. The decision exclusively focuses on the question whether the Swiss Federal Patent Court has jurisdiction…
One of the topics hotly discussed within the intellectual property family over the last few years is whether or not “transit” is an act of infringement. Since, unlike patent law, trademark law is already harmonised at the EU level, many cases have reached the ECJ, which has generated a saga of judgments that does not…
