Enforcement, France, Scope of protection

(Véron & Associés)/ /1 Comment
Landmark European Patent Cases

In the UK, the signal “Another train coming” flashes when there is more than one railway line over an automatic crossing and another train is approaching. If you have avoided the first train, you must pay attention to the other train approaching not to be hit by it. We can take a similar warning from the order handed down on 12 February 2010 by the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris: the expiry of a SPC covering a combination of two active ingredients does not allow the exploitation of that combination if another SPC covering only one of those active ingredients is still in force: such exploitation infringes this SPC.

Case Law, Netherlands, Novelty, Scope of protection, Validity

(Brinkhof)/

As the Supreme Court had held for European Patents (SC 6 March 2009 Boston Scientific/Medinol), the Court of Appeal now affirms that the so-called Spiro/Flamco doctrine, which set strict requirements for partial nullification/maintenance of a patent, is also no longer applicable to Dutch patents since EPC 2000 came into force. The patent holder has the…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Netherlands, Novelty, Scope of protection

(Brinkhof)/

The District Court of The Hague holds the Dutch part of Eli Lilly’s olanzapine patent and SPC invalid because the substance olanzapine has been directly and unambiguously disclosed in a prior art document. According to the Court, the person skilled in the art will immediately recognize the error and the correction for this error in…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Enforcement, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

On 1 March 2010, Commercial Court number 1 of Pamplona handed down a judgement dismissing a declaratory non-infringement action filed by L.C. against N. The Court rejected the claim in its entirety, on the ground that L.C. lacked “locus standi”, as it was not L.C. but a third party who was supposedly to carry out…

Case Law, EPC, Sufficiency of disclosure

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In this case, the Board of Appeal had to decide whether a claim containing a feature for which the description contained erroneous figures only met the requirements of Article 83 EPC (sufficiency of disclosure) and Rule 27(1)(e) EPC 1973 (corresponding to Rule 42(1)(e) EPC 2000). The Board of Appeal decided that a patent application should…

Case Law, Employee invention

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The Supreme Court confirmed the Court of Appeal’s decision that the certification of the status of creator of a technical achievement is an indispensable condition for monetary compensation of an employee by an enterprise. Since the plaintiffs have not requested or received any documents recognizing their status as creators of a technical achievement, their claim…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Equivalents, Extent of Protection, Netherlands, Scope of protection

(Brinkhof)/

The District Court of The Hague holds that in case of ambiguities in the claim language the skilled man will consult the prosecution history to determine the scope of protection. The patent can not be construed in such manner that it would lack novelty over prior art from which the patent was explicitly delimited during…