Less than one out of three employees at the EPO are satisfied with their working life, according to a survey on psychosocial risks which was carried out for the Staff Union of the EPO. 66% of the respondents in the survey said their working conditions have deteriorated over the last 3 years, and 63% perceive…
Can natural justice outweigh statute, contractual confidentiality obligations and industry practice? Recently, the High Court of Delhi passed a decision in the heated FRAND dispute between InterDigital and Xiaomi concerning confidentiality clubs. [1] The Court held that that Xiaomi’s employees must necessarily have access to InterDigital’s third party patent license agreements, so that Xiaomi may…
Readers of the Blog should remember the French landmark French judgment rendered in September 2020 in the European Pemetrexed saga, which condemned Fresenius to pay € 28 million in damages (see here). This time the action brought by Eli Lilly on French territory concerns the same drug but is directed against another generic commercialized by Zentiva….
As reported in last week’s post, on 20 January 2021 Birss J handed down what may be his last first instance decision before his elevation to the Court of Appeal. The first post on the judgment considered the issues of identifying the skilled person, insufficiency and infringement. This second part considers the decision relating to…
Last year, the European Patent Office changed the publication schedule of the Guidelines as part of its Strategic Plan 2023 which meant there was no update to the Guidelines in 2020. The changed schedule also made room for public consultation to enable increased stakeholder involvement. The first such public consultation ran for six weeks and…
I have the pleasure and the honor of welcoming today Professor Anne-Catherine Chriariny. Professor Chiariny teaches Patent Law and International Private Law at the University of Montpellier. She is notably the author of a famous doctoral thesis on international patent litigation awarded by the Prix Pierre Véron and the Prix Cercle Montesquieu in 2007, published in…
On 20 January 2021 Birss J handed down what may be his last first instance decision before he takes his place in the Court of Appeal. If that turns out to the case then Illumina Cambridge Limited v Latvia MGI Tech SIA and others is a substantial judgment to mark this departure. In this case…
In utility model cancellation proceedings, if a proprietor defends its utility model only with certain sets of claims, the Federal Patent Court generally has no reason to subject the subject-matter of individual claims to separate examination. However, the situation is different if the proprietor submits for decision a set of claims with independent claims that…
Introduction The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on intellectual property (IP) law undoubtedly ranks as one of the most-discussed topics of 2020 among legal academics and practitioners. Following initiatives at WIPO, the EPO and several national IPOs (including the UKIPO and the USPTO), EU institutions have now also become active in this area. On 20…
After BREXIT, ratification and then withdrawal by the UK, a referral to the German Constitutional Court (“Bundesverfassungsgericht“) and finally a ratification by its parliament, the UPC project is once again blocked in Germany, as previously before the Bundesverfassungsgericht. Like the phoenix, the project is constantly reborn. But should we resist, or should we surrender? What think of…
