As readers are well aware, Directive 2004/48 EC (known as the “Enforcement Directive”), stemming from Part III of the TRIPS Agreement, was meant to introduce a minimum level of intellectual property protection throughout the European Union. For example, article 13 establishes that Member States must guarantee that judicial authorities can order the party found to…
Geofabrics Limited v Fiberweb Geosynthetics Limited [2022] EWHC 2363 (Pat) Geofabrics Limited (“Geofabrics”) has been awarded £13.4 million in damages for patent infringement, concluding a 5 year long dispute with Fiberweb Geosynthetics Limited (“Fiberweb”). Damages inquiries are rare in the UK so this judgment from Charlotte May KC (sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge),…
Although the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (AUPC) cannot be considered Union (EU) Law, it is couched in the wording of EU legal acts seeking to create “unitary patent protection” as part of “enhanced cooperation” between Member States enshrined in Articles 326 et seq. of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union…
Just over 2 years after the SPC waiver Regulation (EU) 2019/933 (amending the Regulation (EC) No 469/2009) entered into force (1 July 2019), and only a few months after the end of the transitional provisions for application of the SPC waiver under Art. 5(10) of the Regulation (2 July 2022), I have decided to follow…
The Unified Patent Court has provided more information about the new authentication mode and electronic signature, which are necessary to access the CMS of the new court. As is explained in a document which was published today, ‘to be able to use the CMS system and eSignature functions, you need first to contact one of…
The Unified Patent Court will finally become a reality, open its doors and start to receive cases from 1 April 2023. This is announced in the implementation roadmap, which was published yesterday by the UPC preparatory team and depicts all the key activities and milestones of the UPC in the coming months. The roadmap also…
The Unified Patent Court has postponed the introduction of a new login process for its content management system, based on a strong authentication schema, to the end of October. Late August, the UPC announced the implementation would take place ‘in the next release of the UPC CMS v0.65’ and would be activated mid or end…
The so-called proportionality defense according to Sec. 139(1) clause 3 (hereinafter simply “proportionality defense”) is one of the newest provisions of the German Patent Act. It has only been introduced in August 2021 through the Patentrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz, a typical German word monster, of which an informative summary was posted here. The main driver of this proportionality…
On March 31, 2022, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) publicized the “Good Faith Negotiation Guidelines for Standard Essential Patent Licenses” (hereinafter, the “METI Guidelines”). The METI Guidelines are not legally binding but were created as norms of good faith negotiations to be followed by SEP holders and implementers involved in SEP licensing…
In a case where the patent is not opposed in its entirety, the opposition being directed at certain claims only, and where the Opposition Division decides that all of the proprietor’s requests in relation to the opposed claims must fail, only the unopposed claims, which are not part of any opposition proceedings, are left standing….
