The Wako federal district court abused its discretion in fining that The Western District of Texas was a more convenient form that the Northern District of California. The federal district court in Waco, Texas abused its discretion in denying Juniper Networks’ motion to transfer six patent infringement actions filed by a Texas-based patent assertion entity…
In a new chapter of the ongoing saga of Sisvel’s 4G patents against (mainly Chinese) infringers, the present interlocutory decision shows that the procedural attitude of a defendant (in the present case Wiko) may be very important and can influence the court’s decision. Case date: 21 April 2021 Case number: C/09/583227 / HA ZA 19-1162 Court: District…
In a recent decision, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court – Switzerland’s highest court also in patent matters – dealt with the question of whether the assessment of patent claims is fundamentally a question of law or a question of fact. This distinction is relevant under Swiss law for example because in Switzerland, after the conclusion…
Two months after a series of ILOAT judgments stating that former EPO president Benoit Battistelli abused his power by implementing new rules to restrict the rights of staff members to strike in 2013, the EPO has detailed in which way it intends to carry out the judgments. According to a SUEPO report, EPO president António…
On 14 September 2021, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) announced that most of the amendments to the Patent Act and other intellectual property laws, which were promulgated on 21 May 2021, will come into force on 1 April 2022. The amendments cover various matters such as the introduction of online oral hearings at the trial…
Germany and Slovenia have ratified the Protocol on the Provisional Application (PPA) of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. According to a report of the UPC Preparatory Committee, the German government deposited the instrument of ratification for the PPA on 27 September 2021. It wrote: “This is a decisive step on the way to the establishment…
Can an artificial intelligence (“AI”) machine be an inventor and can the machine’s owner apply for a patent? These were two of the key questions which the Court of Appeal grappled with in Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents [2021] EWCA Civ 1374. The Court, by a 2-1 majority, answered both these questions, as well…
Two recent decisions in South Africa and Australia have accepted the fanciful thesis that an AI could be an inventor. I have no intention of commenting these decisions here, I simply want to try to understand how such a farfetched (and useless) idea, could have gained such ground in such a short time. Let’s say it right away: although…
In our blog of 27 August 2021, we explained that the Barcelona Appeal Court (Section 15), in a very interesting Ruling of 16 October 2020, decided that the claims as amended before the EPO Boards of Appeal should become the subject of the national proceedings in lieu of the claims asserted in the initial infringement…
Submission of an abbreviated Biologics License Application (“aBLA”), under the Biosimilar Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (“BPCIA”), for a biosimilar version of an already-approved biologic drug constitutes an “artificial act of infringement” for which the biologic’s patent owner may file suit.[1] In the recent AbbVie Inc. v. Alvotech hf.[2] decision, the district court…
