The European Patent Office (EPO) received 188 600 applications in 2021, up 4.5% on the previous year and the highest number to date, according to the EPO’s Patent Index 2021. Patent filings rebounded after a slight dip in 2020. “Digital communication (+9.4% compared with 2020) narrowly overtook medical technology (+0.8%) as the field with the largest number of European…
The trade union SUEPO has claimed the strike it called for during the meeting of the Administrative Council on 22 March 2022 was a ‘striking success’. According to a statement it sent to its members two days after the strike, 1.514 employees representing 24,45% of all staff participated in the strike, including 28,63% of staff…
In two separate judgments, the Full Court has provided much needed clarity on how to identify the pharmaceutical products that can support a valid patent term extension in Australia, as Natalie Shoolman, Kent Teague and Rose Jenkins explain in this article. Takeaways: Patent term extensions must be based on the “earliest first regulatory approval date”…
In a complex case concerning blockbuster cinacalcet, Section 15 of the Barcelona Court of Appeals makes findings on the non-obviousness of inventions consisting of the provision of an unexpected technical effect. In these cases, the technical problem can be reformulated as providing such effect, provided that it is related to the problem initially disclosed in…
Since 19 January 2022, the provisional application protocol (“PAP”) of the UPCA has officially entered into force. However, as previously reported, this entry into force of UPC faces a number of difficulties, including the exit of the UK as a result of BREXIT. One example is PAP’s Article 3(1), which requires the Protocol to be…
SPCs are often valuable and therefore important to their proprietors. Indeed, such is the potential value of an additional period of exclusivity, that in the last decade or so, we have seen SPCs challenged where only a few weeks or even a few days of the SPC term remain. It is therefore hardly surprising, especially…
Although the title of this blog may sound trite to most readers, it may still be of interest to briefly discuss a recent case where this topic was discussed before the Spanish courts in the context of a judicial patent dispute between Erasmus Universiteit Medisch Centrum Rotterdam (“Erasmus) and its licensee, on the one hand,…
Meade J reaffirms the UK Courts’ approach to disclosure of confidential information How far should the Court go to protect a party’s confidential information during disclosure? In a recent decision ([2022] EWHC 490 (Pat)) in two related patent infringement actions between Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (“SGRE”) and General Electric (“GE”), Meade J confirmed that there…
The Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC) confirmed a second instance court judgment considering, inter alia, the effect of a later exclusive patent license contract having the same subject matter as an earlier one and the effect of (non-)registration of an exclusive patent license contract and its termination with the Bulgarian Patent Office (BPO). Case…
If, in an action for a declaration of invalidity of a patent brought by several plaintiffs, the proceedings against one of the plaintiffs are interrupted pursuant to Section 240 of the Code of Civil Procedure (CCP), a partial judgment may be given against the other plaintiffs. Case date: 24 August 2021 Case number: X ZR 59/19 Court:…
