A reminder of the good old days, when many things were still normal… I. Nemo Iudex Once upon a time, the “nemo iudex” principle was a fundamental cornerstone of EPO Board Appeal proceedings, even though EPO management did not always appreciate it (do you still remember R 19/12?). The principle reads in full: Nemo Iudex…
Legal basis The legal basis for compulsory licenses under German Patent Law is under Section 24 of the German Patent Act. The German Patent Act meets the requirements of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and the implementation of the Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions (Directive 98/44/EC). A claim…
(UPDATED) The US has thrown its support behind an initiative at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to temporarily waive intellectual property rights in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Late April rich members of the WTO, including the US, were still blocking the proposal backed by developing countries to suspend these rights for the production of…
A patent owner has the right to exclude others from practicing its hard-earned patent. Typically, this exclusion covers actions such as making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention. In many jurisdictions, the patent owner has a legal obligation to work its invention in exchange for this exclusive monopoly. However, under certain…
The ‘new normal’ at the EPO and more particularly plans to allow oral proceedings by videoconference even if parties don’t want it, have been leading to extensive debate over the last weeks. No less than 47 amicus curiae briefs were filed with the Enlarged Board of Appeal in case G 1/21, where the crucial referral question…
In my last post I deciphered several fake news, which spoil the public debate about compulsory licensing, I then mentioned a French bill proposal, introduced by Mr. Ronan Le Gleut in the Senate on April 8, 2021, whose I thought important to translate, so that it can feed the international debate on compulsory licensing following…
The long and winding road, as The Beatles would put it, that led to the judgments of the CJEU in Teva et altri v. Gilead Sciences (Case C-121/17) and Royalty Pharma v. Deutsches Patent und Markenamt (Case C-650/17), which renewed the Court’s case law on the meaning of “product“, started in the Medeva judgment (Case…
SEP-related case law in Europe is regularly reported in this blog, and other European platforms. Decisions of courts in UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands on FRAND royalties, anti-suit injunctions, anti-anti-suit injunctions, declarations of essentiality and other SEP issues are often thoroughly commented upon. This is not the case of Italian SEP case law. While…
The greatest challenge for IP in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) will be to achieve some level of harmonisation worldwide. IP expert Adam Liberman has said this in the second part of a series of interviews with authors and editors of Kluwer IP Law. Liberman is director IP advantage at Deloitte and adjunct professor at…
The European Patent Office has invited its users and stakeholders to take position on the first draft of its „Towards a new normal“ orientation document. My experience with such public consultations in the recent past has not been particularly encouraging. It seems to me that outside views are simply collected and then moved into a…
