On 15 March 2011, in a dispute opposing the companies E.I Du Pont de Nemours and Merck and companies Mylan and Qualimed, the Cour d’Appel of Paris confirmed the order handed down on 12 February 2010 by the President of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris, subject-matter of a previous post. The American company E.I. Du Pont de…
In a judgment dated 17 March 2011 reported at [2011] EWHC 583 (Pat), the English High Court has upheld certain claims of two patents (deriving from the same ultimate parent application) for the formulation of Ethinylestradiol (“EE”) and Drospirenone (“DSP”) used in contraception. The patents in issue belonged to Bayer Schering Pharma AG. The Hungarian…
The so-called “person skilled in the art” is a fictitious character in charge of, among other functions, assessing whether or not an invention is obvious with respect to the state of the art. For the experts appointed by the parties to be able to illustrate to the Court what would have been the understanding of…
With a judgement of 12 February 2009 the German “Bundesgerichtshof” has dealt with the question whether defendant of a patent infringement action shall be allowed to defend against the claims raised by a patent owner by pointing to another patent which is older than the litigious patent and by further saying that this older patent…
By final judgment of November 18, 2010 (Xa ZR 149/07, published in Mitt. 2011, 66 (in German only)), the German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) decided on two interesting issues in nullity appeal proceedings regarding the German patent DE 101 41 650 pertaining to a patch containing the opioid fentanyl, a strong analgesic drug. Firstly,…
Co-author Christiaen Dekoninck. Noteworthy decision on the balance of interests within the framework of preliminary injunction proceedings: Antwerp Court refuses to issue a preliminary injunction because the patent holder could have started accelerated proceedings on the merits earlier. By a decision of 15 March 2011, the President of the Antwerp Commercial Court dismissed the claims…
The Court of Appeal allowed Virgin’s appeal and overturned the decision of the High Court which had granted Delta’s application for summary judgment on the basis that it was wrong to say Virgin had no real prospect of establishing infringement of its patent. Click here for the full text of this case. A full summary of…
The Supreme Court held that the US doctrine of file wrapper estoppel is not applicable under the EPC. According to the Court only Article 69 of the EPC and the Protocol on its interpretation should be applied when determining the scope of a claim. The modifications of the patent application during prosecution cannot be taken…
On 2 March 2011 the Barcelona Court of Appeal handed down a judgment reversing a decision from Commercial Court n.4 of Barcelona, which rejected the patent owners’ ‘lis pendens‘ defence against a revocation action filed by L.A. and others based on lack of inventive step. In its judgment of 2 March 2011, the Court of…
The Court held that in order to decide that a patented invention is novel, it is not sufficient that the wording in the patent description is different from the wording in the prior art. The technical subject-matter of the prior art must be different. Moreover, it had to be assessed whether publicly accessible information could…
