The EPO’s Boards of Appeal are famously strict on added matter. But normally applicants can sleep soundly at night after making amendments based entirely on the original dependent claims having appropriate back references, especially where the amendments still cover the examples. T 1137/21 however might cause some applicants sleepless nights, as the Board found the…
On November 28, 2023, the Tokyo District Court issued a preliminary injunction order against Sawai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (“Sawai”) to suspend the manufacture and sale of Sawai’s pharmaceutical product (“Sawai’s Product”) developed and sold as a generic drug of Bristol-Myers Squibb (“BMS”)’s cancer drug “Sprycel®” (Case No. 2023 (Yo) 30214; AIK represented BMS in this…
The Unified Patent Court, what else? For the patent community 2023 was a historical year. After two decades of hard work and debates, but also delays, court cases, Brexits and other disappointments, the new European patent court finally opened its doors and the Unitary Patent saw the light of day. Unsurprisingly, the new patent system…
On December 12, 2023, the President of the BRPTO gave a normative and binding character to four Opinions of the Specialized Federal Attorney’s Office, imposing restrictions on the actions available to applicants when appealing first instance decisions. Particularly, the Opinion limits the provisions of the Brazilian Patent Statute which guarantee the “full devolutive effect”. Similarly…
Access to documents: How far should we be able to peek behind the curtain? As we move past the first six months of operation of the UPC, those trying to keep track of its jurisprudence – and the judges themselves – are starting to have a busier time of things. We wrote last month as…
Since the start of operations 1 June 2023, the Unified Patent Court has received 160 cases. The court published an overview of the cases last week. The German local divisions are by far the most popular for infringement actions, and the language of 49 percent of the cases is German as well. The local division…
On 4th December 2023, the Intermediate People’s Court of Chongqing Municipality in China handed down its FRAND determination in the global 5G patent licensing dispute between patent owner Nokia and the Chinese implementer Oppo. The Finnish multinational has already confirmed that it will appeal the decision, which marks the first time a court has issued…
Yes and no, it seems. Well, yes and then no, if recent French decisions are anything to go by. In short, Hesitations Blues reign. This attitude is all the more interesting given that the question, which arose more especially in the FINGOLIMOD case, has been raised before several European courts, all of which are opposed…
The EPO has recently announced it will ‘accelerate its processing of parallel opposition proceedings if it is informed by the Unified Patent Court or a national court or competent authority of a contracting state that an infringement or revocation action relating to a European patent or a Unitary Patent has been instituted before it.’ It…
When the Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) endeavour was in the process of being designed back in the day, its architects presented the project as an example of a one-in-a-kind cosmopolitan litigation forum, the seat of patent judges and litigators from all cultures, skills, backgrounds, languages and walks of life. A cosmopolitan court that would set…
