Two applications for preliminary injunctions against German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement have been rejected. The German Federal Constitutional Court has announced this in a press release. “Order of 23 June 2021 2 BvR 2216/20, 2 BvR 2217/20 In an order published today, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court rejected two…
On 25 June 2021 Meade J handed down his decision in the second of a series of trials listed as part of the Optis v Apple UK action ([2021] EWHC 1739 (Pat); a link the judgment is here). This decision concerned the validity and infringement of EP (UK) 2 229 744. This patent had previously…
In a surprising decision, the Federal Court has modified the law of patent term extensions in Australia, by clarifying that it’s only the patentee’s goods that are relevant to the proposed extension – not those of a competitor, even if the competitor’s goods came first and also contain a “pharmaceutical substance per se” that is…
Legal Analysis In Australia, the law with respect to compulsory licenses is framed to prevent useful inventions from remaining unworked in Australia. A person who wishes to exploit a patented invention may apply to the Federal Court for an order requiring the patentee to grant the applicant a license. Such an application can only be…
“The Annual Review 2020 shows that demand for European patents remained nearly on a par with last year. The Office received a total of 180 250 European patent applications, 0.7% fewer than in 2019. To meet this demand during the pandemic, the EPO accelerated the digitalisation of the patent grant process and extended teleworking to almost all…
A board of appeal of the EPO held that for the problem-solution approach to inventive step the requirement of the same “purpose or effect” in the criteria for selecting the closest prior art for a claim refers to the purpose or effect of the claimed subject-matter as a whole, not just of its distinguishing feature(s)….
The German Federal Court of Justice (“BGH”) held in its decision “Papierspender” (“Paper Dispenser”) that a Community design was not automatically caught by the functionality provision of the Community Design Regulation because it had appeared in a patent application. The decision highlights the importance for product developers to keep detailed records, already during product development,…
Legal Basis The legal basis for patent law in Saudi Arabia is contained in Law no. 159 – Patents, Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits, Plant Varieties and Industrial Models Law of 2004. The provisions for compulsory licenses are contained in Articles 24 to 30 of the Saudi Arabia Patent Law Decree. Articles 24 and 25…
Patent asserted against Apple and Samsung merely claimed the abstract idea of taking two pictures and using those pictures to enhance each other in some way. A district court’s dismissal of infringement actions accusing Apple and Samsung of infringing a patent for digital cameras with multiple lenses was upheld by a divided Federal Circuit panel,…
As many readers will already know, two new full-time Patents Judges have been appointed to the English Court in the last 9 months – Meade and Mellor JJ. Despite the challenges that the global pandemic has brought, the English Patents Court has coped remarkably well and there has been no let-up in the progress of…
