In a recently published decision the Swiss Federal Supreme Court clarified some particularities of the former Swiss Patent Act regarding the amendment of patent claims during prosecution proceedings. Under the Swiss Patent Act in force until 1 July 2008, applicants who applied for the grant of a Swiss patent were allowed to extend the scope…
According to the decision “Diglycidverbindung”, if the variant does neither fall under the literal scope of the claim nor corresponds to a (non-claimed) example in the description, infringement by equivalent means still seems to be possible under certain circumstances.
by Miriam Büttner In a recent decision of 15 September 2011 (ref. no. 4b O 99/11) the District Court of Düsseldorf (LG Düsseldorf) found that a non-final decision of the utility model cancel-lation division of the German Patent and Trademark Office (GPTO), with which the utility model was declared (partially) invalid, is not a sufficient…
On 24 November 2011 the CJEU passed judgment in the cases C-322/10 (Medeva) and C-422/10 (Georgetown). In the Medeva judgment, the Court answers six questions put to it by the UK Court of Appeal and the High Court respectively. The facts are deemed known by the reader – they can be conveniently reduced to: A…
In its judgement of 18 October 2011, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has confirmed that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) do not constitute patentable subject matter, given the ban under European law on patents for technologies entailing the uses of human embryos for industrial or commercial purposes. The patent which gave…
On 8 November 2011, in the case of Fresenius v Carefusion, the English Court of Appeal declared that “the Earth Closet order should be consigned to the place that bears its name.” The “Earth Closet” or See v Scott Paine Order was an idiosyncratic but potentially very important principle of English patent law. The Order…
As already explained in a previous post, the company governed by the laws of Switzerland, Novartis AG, is the holder of patent EP 0 443 983 entitled “Acyl compounds”, whose subject-matter is a group of antihypertensive compounds, including valsartan, pharmaceutical preparations containing them and processes for the preparation of these compounds. This patent, filed on 12 February 1991, was to…
If incorrect pre-litigation behavior of only one of the parties (in this case evasive and conflicting answers to warning letters of a patentee) leads to unnecessary litigation, the court costs and legal expenses of the counterparty have to be imposed entirely on the party that acted incorrectly. Click here for the full text of this case. A…
The Court held that Pfizer’s Norwegian patent for use of sildenafil (a PDE 5 inhibitor) for treatment of erectile dysfunction was inventive. Although the court did not consider it inventive to test PDE V inhibitors for the treatment of erectile dysfunction as such, it held that the skilled person in so testing was confronted with…
The Supreme Administrative Court –overruled the Patent Office (PO) denying AstraZeneca’s application for a supplementary protection certificate (SPC), because the PO should have applied § 77(2) – instead of §79 – of the Transitional and Closing Provisions of the Act amending the Bulgarian Patents Act, which does not contains any requirements relating to the product’s…
