The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s finding that Novartis’ patent for ophthalmically compatible extended wear contact lenses was invalid for insufficiency. The Court of Appeal held that the patent does not teach which materials described in the specification are suitable for extended wear lenses, nor does the patent enable the skilled person to…
The Court of Appeal confirmed the First Instance Court decision and held that Occlutech’s devices do not infringe AGA’s patent regarding septal occlusion devices, which feature braided metal strands and have a collapsed configuration for delivery through a channel in a patient’s body. The Court held – with reference to Article 69 EPC and the…
The District Court of The Hague declares the Dutch part of Bayer’s European Patent covering Anti-TNF alpha human monoclonal antibodies invalid. The Court considers that the patent covers high affinity antibodies. However, the Court finds that such type of antibodies is not sufficiently disclosed in the patent specification, and therefore invalidates the patent as a…
The Thessaloniki Court of Appeal held in nullity proceedings that the patent, covering ornamental light devices, lacked both novelty and inventive step. The patented subject matter was found to be known in the market and circulating in trade prior to the date of filing the application for patent protection. A full summary of this case…
The new French law implementing the London Protocol is immediately applicable, even to European patents granted before the entry into force of this new law. The Court held that the new law was procedural and should, as such, be enforced immediately with retroactive effect. A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer…
The Enlarged Board of Appeal answered the question referred to it by the Board of Appeal in J 2/08. The Enlarged Board of Appeal held that after a decision to refuse a European patent application, the application remains pending, in the sense that a divisional application can be validly filed, until the expiry of the…
In the past, Italian courts have regularly dismissed motions for interlocutory (pre trial) declaratory judgements of non infringement in IP cases. The firm belief of the courts was that interlocutory proceedings could not be used to obtain DJ orders for a number of procedural reasons. The Scott Paper decisions of the Italian provincial court of…
European patent practitioners are welcoming the news that the EPO Administrative Council reached a decision on 26 October 2010 to extend the period for responding to a communication under Rule 161 EPC from one month to six months as of 1 May 2011. Since 1 April 2010, practitioners have been put under considerable pressure as…
There are three compulsory rules you must observe when challenging a judge on grounds of bias: 1) Be prepared. 2) Use good reasons. 3) Have a worthy goal. I wish to exemplify this by a hearing I had just recently: As some of you may know, the current presiding judge of the appeal board for…
In Grimme Landmaschinenfabrik GmbH v Scott [2010] EWCA Civ 1110 the English Court of Appeal stated clearly its support for judicial collaboration facilitating de facto harmonisation of patent law in Europe. The Court then interpreted the UK provisions on indirect/contributory infringement consistently with approaches taken in The Netherlands and Germany. The case in question concerned…
