What happens in Germany’s bifurcated patent litigation system, if – during pending infringements proceedings – the nullity court declares the patent partly invalid? The patentee can amend its infringement action accordingly. The infringement action is then based on the patent claim as amended by the nullity court, and not on the patent claim as initially…
In a recent decision the Federal Swiss Supreme Court reversed a decision rendered by the Civil Court of the Canton Basel-Stadt in a case between Novartis and Teva Pharma concerning Teva’s product Fluvastatin-Teva Retard because the judgment did not contain a written statement of grounds. The patent litigation community eagerly awaits the new Federal Code of Civil Procedure that will enter into force on 1 January 2011. After the harmonization of the Swiss civil procedural law, the issue of missing reasoning and statements of ground should not arise anymore.
On 30 June 2010, the Supreme Court held that the ‘Bolar provision’ introduced by Law 29/2006, which implemented Directive 2004/27 into Spanish law, may not be applied retrospectively. In addition, the Supreme Court revoked the view expressed by the Court of Appeal of Pamplona and other provincial Courts, which had considered that the ‘Bolar provision’…
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University filed a patent application for a system and process for monitoring railway tracks by means of optical fibres. The applicant argued that, whereas document D1 related to railway monitoring systems using optical fibre sensors, the skilled person, being, as railway engineers, of very conservative nature, would only consider conventional electromagnetic…
SK Telecom filed a patent application for a system and method for financial transactions, wherein a user was allowed to load money in his account on a host computer. The examining division refused to grant a patent for lack of inventive step as the invention related to a straightforward technical implementation of an administrative banking…
In summary proceedings filed by Novartis, the Brussels Court of Appeal issued a preliminary injunction, enjoining Mylan from infringing Novartis’ patent for ‘pharmaceutical compositions for sustained release of Fluvastatine’, until a decision is rendered in the proceedings on the merits. The Court further held that the injunction will be lifted, if the European Patent Office’s…
On 8 October 2010, the Cour d’Appel of Paris rendered a interesting decision about the interpretation of the wording of one of the settlement agreements which have been concluded between Institut Pasteur and the American health authority (DHHS/NIH) in order to put an end to the various disputes which opposed them concerning the paternity of the HIV-1/VIH retrovirus’ discovery and the patents relating thereto. The question at stake was to determine if a gp 110 protein was the subject-matter of the said settlement agreement so that Abbott, as a sublicensee of the NIH, could validly exploit in France that gp 110 protein in its detecting kits. Otherwise Abbott would have been an infringer of the Institut Pasteur’s European patents.
Yesterday the Dutch Court of Appeal closed ranks with six out of nine jurisdictions in which the European Central Bank (ECB) started nullity actions against Document Security Systems’ (DSS) patent related to anti-forgery measures (EP 455 750). The Dutch Court of Appeal revoked the patent for added matter over the application as originally filed. The…
The case concerned the question of whether the sale of an incomplete kit of parts to a customer outside of the UK could constitute infringement of a patent for the assembled device for the purposes of section 60(1)(a) of the Patents Act 1977 (based on Article 25 CPC). The judge (Arnold J) also provided some…
On 3 August 2007 and 5 December 2007, Commercial Court Number 1 of Barcelona ordered a preliminary injunction preventing the launch of all the generics of a well-known medicament used to treat schizophrenia. Also, for the purpose of maintaining the status quo, the Court ordered for the judgment be notified to the Ministry of Health…
