The Unified Patent Court has announced a practice period will be held from 13 to 24 February 2023 to try out the CMS sunrise functionalities which, as of the first of March, will enable users to opt out European patents from the jurisdiction of the UPC. During the practice period a CMS test environment will…
Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer is about to leave the German Patent and Trademark Office whose President she has been for 14 years. On 31 January 2023 she will enter into her well-deserved retirement. This should not remain unnoticed on this blog, even though others are more qualified to praise her merits and appraise the GPTO’s achievements during…
On 6 January 2023, the Danish Maritime and Commercial High Court dismissed an application for remission to the Board of Appeal of the registration of a utility model. The court considered whether the Danish Patent and Trademark Office ought to have considered a prior registration when examining ex officio a utility model application. On 14…
The new and noteworthy decision T 670/20 by Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.07 provides more legal certainty for patentees of formulation patents. The proprietors of pharmaceutical formulation and pharmaceutical use patents do often not have it easy, if and when – as is often the case – they have conducted clinical trials before the priority…
In the present preliminary case a cross-border injunction was ordered by the provisions judge. He came to this conclusion because he found the product to be infringing (in contrast to a preliminary decision of the Greek court) and he found that the Dutch-based Pharmathen company was controlling the other companies in the group. Case date: 19…
He left the UPC somewhat unexpectedly late 2022, and now he’s back already: Alexander Ramsay, long-time chairman of the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court, has been appointed as Registrar of the new court. This has been announced on the UPC’s website. Axel Jacobi from Germany will be Deputy-Registrar. Both new officials of the…
A preparatory training for UPC appointed judges was launched yesterday in Budapest. According to an announcement on the UPC’s website, the legally and technically qualified judges of the Court are participating in the training, which aims at facilitating an in-depth understanding of the Rules of Procedure of the UPC. ‘It is organised as a partnership…
Everything flows, and the Dutch cross-border injunction flows like no other. From its source in the The Hague all the way to the cradle of Europe: Greece. So decided the Dutch Courts in the Novartis vs. Pharmathen case. The willingness of the Dutch Courts to assume jurisdiction to grant cross-border relief in international patent cases…
The past decade has witnessed a sharp increase in litigation over standard essential patents (SEPs) around the world. National courts in several countries including UK have ruled they can set global FRAND rates, the Unwired Planet case in UK being a notable example. This approach is controversial and has sparked debates over the ability of…
Because prior art described a method that could execute an application on one computer server, it should have been obvious that the method could be applied to multiple servers. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board erred when it found that several claims of a patent describing the remote application of a computer application were not…
