In this blog I report about how the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) has recently eliminated some potential for conflicting decisions in Germany’s bifurcated patent litigation system. The separation of infringement and invalidity proceedings is the basis for what we call the “mouse and elephant strategy”. In the infringement proceedings the patentee tries to establish a scope of…

In a decision of 7 September 2010, the Dutch Patent Office (NL Octrooicentrum) on appeal confirmed its earlier decision to not grant a supplementary protection certificate (SPC) for the medicinal product tocilizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody against the human interleukin-6 receptor, which is approved as a human rheumatoid arthritis drug. The applicant had requested an…

In July 2010, the European Commission published a press release on its findings in the Report on the monitoring of patent settlements (Press release IP/10/887). Sparked by this survey, we have conducted an informal investigation into patent settlements in Denmark during the period January 2000 until January 2010, which shows that during this period in…

By Legislative Decree no. 131 of 13 August 2010, which became effective on 2 September 2010, the Italian legislator passed a number of amendments to the Italian IP Code. One of these is new Art. 68 (1bis) on the statutory limitations to patent rights (which in paragraph 1 already included, and still includes, personal use,…

In my first post I have described the old shabby courtroom of the patent chamber of the District Court of Düsseldorf. Meanwhile the court has moved to a new court house which is situated close to the central station. This new location is the result of a more service oriented approach of the judicature. Not…

On 12 July 2010 the Supreme Court handed down a long-waited judgment, dismissing a complaint filed by a manufacturer of generic medicaments against a patent owner that had threatened more than one hundred wholesalers with patent infringement actions. The facts of the case go back to 2003, when a Court of First Instance of Madrid…

By decision of 29 July 2010, the Italian Supreme Administrative Court (Consiglio di Stato) tackled the difficult issue of whether the Italian drugs regulatory authority (Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco – AIFA) should or should not consider the existence of a patent when adopting decisions relating to the marketing authorisations of generics. In the case at…