by Bernward Zollner In a case called “Produktionsrückstandsentsorgung” the German Bundesgerichtshof has discussed a case in which the claim of the litigious patent had been amended and narrowed with respect to the scope of protection after the judgment of the appeal court had been handed down. The appeal court therefore, could not have discussed the…
By order of 16 October 2012 in Sperotto v. Bolpagni , the Court of Turin stated, in line with a few other of its recent decisions, that patent infringement ordinary proceedings (even if including a cross-claim of revocation) must be stayed until the conclusion of EPO opposition proceedings pending on the allegedly infringed patent, in application…
The Polish government’s enthusiasm for the EU patent package has seriously dwindled of late. It appears to have taken several steps back with respect to the implementation of a unified patent protection regime across Europe as a result of the heavy criticism of the EU patent reform at home. In particular, the UPC is still…
As has been well publicised, the end of 2012 was a time of considerable progress in the long history of the Unitary patent and Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) dossier, culminating in adoption of the Unitary Patent Regulation 1257/2012 and its accompanying Language Regulation 1260/2012. But what next? Built into the Unitary Patent Regulation is a…
Hearings in the UK’s highest Court concerning patents are rare. In fact, since the Supreme Court was established in place of the House of Lords in October 2009, there has only been one substantive decision namely the Eli Lilly v Human Genome Sciences case. Last week the Supreme Court heard its second patents case, Schütz…
by Miriam Büttner On 27 November 2012 the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) decided on the ethical problematical question, if neural precursor cells which origin from human stem cells are patentable or not (case no. X ZR 58/07). Background of the decision: Subject of this BGH decision is the validity of German patent no. 197…
In two months, the U.S. patent system will begin its transition from the current “first to invent” system to a new “first-inventor-to-file” system. Inventors and applicants should be considering whether patent applications that may be ready for filing should be filed before or after the March 16, 2013 effective date of the U.S. first-to-file laws. …
On 11 December 2012 Advocate General Yves Bot delivered his conclusions on the complaints brought by Italy and Spain against the Coucil’s decision to proceed through enhanced cooperation to the adoption of the unitary patent regulation, and proposed the CJEU to reject the complaints. As many will remember, the discussions on the adoption of the…
As in some other jurisdictions, under Spanish law so-called “mini-inventions” may be protected by a utility model (called “petty” patents in some countries). The two main differences between a patent and a Spanish utility model are: (i) in the case of utility models, the state of the art includes everything “divulged” in Spain before the…
The number of patent infringement suits filed with the District Court of Düsseldorf remains constantly high. In addition to the two existing patent litigation chambers (chamber 4a presided by Dr. Crummenerl and chamber 4b presided by Ms Voss), the Court now installed a third 4c chamber. This new 4c chamber already started its work at…
