An applicant for re-establishment of rights who fails to substantiate his request adequately in first-instance proceedings cannot normally remedy that failure by submitting additional evidence with the grounds for appeal. An appellant does not have an absolute right to introduce new evidence with the statement of ground of appeal. Click here for the full text of…
As Christmas is coming closer, the “where is the Christmas stand?”-question comes up again. This little piece of engineering only used once a year is not only subject matter of several patents but has kept the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf busy, too (docket No. I-2 U 84/03). Who could imagine that a Christmas stand…
The Supreme Court held that the relevant date of a patent’s enforceability, in case a Spanish translation is required for such enforceability, is the date of announcement of the grant of the patent by the EPO, rather than the date of actual filing of the Spanish translation at the Spanish Patent Office, or the publication…
In the assessment of inventive step, the question whether the prior art discloses a pointer for the skilled person to use the measures described therein, and to apply these to a known substance, could be relevant. It should be investigated whether the measures from the prior art gave rise to the expectation that the solution…
The Federal Court of Justice held that data can be a product directly obtained by a patented process and can therefore be protected. An important issue was whether patent rights were exhausted, if the patentee consented to market a video masterband and the infringer used this masterband to produce DVDs The court discussed whether there…
The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) revoked a decision by the Technical Board of Appeal because it failed to decide on a request to admit an expert report (rule 104b EPC2000). The petition for review was admissible in spite of the fact that the appellant failed to raise an objection during oral proceedings before the…
The Technical Board of Appeal ruled that a claim of an opposed patent was anticipated by the publication of a divisional of that same patent. Because the claim contained an intermediate generalization with respect to the priority document, the claim was not entitled to priority. The divisional was however entitled to claim priority for the…
An invention entailing a talking doll with the ability to send e-mails was held to be unpatentable. The Board of Appeal rejected applicant’s argument that the invention was in the technical field of stuffed animal toys or dolls. There was no contribution in that field because the claim features did not change the toy’s design…
The applicability of the obvious to try question has been a thorny issue in UK patent law for some time, and the desire for a party seeking invalidity to apply this test has pervaded many recent pharmaceutical patent cases in the UK, particularly where the patent claims a single enantiomer and the prior art indicates…
Historically, damages used to be calculated in the so-called “execution” (i.e. enforcement) phase of the proceedings, i.e. a second phase of the proceedings aimed at implementing the declarations and orders included in the judgment handed down after declaratory infringement proceedings. Due to the abuse of this system, in practice, the “execution” phase resulted in complex…
