By Dr Simon Klopschinski As reported previously on this blog, the German ratification process for the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC) has been started anew after the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) had declared the previous ratification act void because it had not been approved by parliament with the required 2/3 majority. Now there…
St. Jude Medical failed to show that challenged claims of patent owned by Snyders had been anticipated by other patents, nor did it prove that a particular combination demonstrated obviousness. Claims of a patent directed to an artificial heart valve manufactured by Snyders Heart Valve LLC and a system for inserting the valve were not…
As Bob Hudec explained in his legendary The GATT Legal System and World Trade Diplomacy, GATT’s (since 1995, WTO) long-standing practice of seeking to adopt decisions by consensus finds its roots in 1947, when the then 23 parties to GATT were a small club of good friends. The proposition that a friend might impose a…
Joining the majority of European courts, the Paris Court of Justice ruled that Eli Lilly’s patent, which relates to the combined administration of pemetrexed disodium and vitamin B12, was infringed by the marketing of Fresenius’ pemetrexed diacid. It also awarded a record amount of damages of €28,000,000: a first in Europe. 1. The pemetrexed “saga”…
In Germany the re-ratification process of the Unified Patent Court Agreement – which is necessary after the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) partially upheld a complaint last March and declared the first ratification procedure invalid – is progressing rapidly. The decisive reading in the Bundestag, which will make clear whether the UPCA gets support from the…
Building the Patent Fence The practice of IP management is a recent discipline. Traditionally, IP departments have been run by members of the legal profession. Often, they are under the supervision of General Counsel. As such, their role has historically been defined from a risk management perspective. ‘Help the firm stay out of trouble and…
If an appeal against a decision of the opposition division to maintain the patent in amended form is filed by both patentee and opponent, but later one of the appeals is withdrawn, the principle of reformatio in peius is still applicable, even if more limiting auxiliary claim sets have been filed by the patentee. Case…
The use of a generally available tool (here: reverse sandwich assays) can involve an inventive step if the advantages pursued and provided by the invention do not materialize without further effort and if the skilled person would not have found (sufficient) motivation in the state of the art to consider that this tool was suitable…
Crucial months are ahead for the Unitary Patent project. In Germany the re-ratification process of the Unified Patent Court Agreement is progressing rapidly, but the threat of new constitutional complaints is looming. Two weeks ago, the Bundesrat approved the UPC ratification bill. Yesterday, in first reading, the Bundestag referred the bill to the parliamentary committees…
PTAB did not err in its claim construction or obviousness findings in two IPRs filed by Westinghouse that challenged two Siemens patents. Substantial evidence supported two Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions following inter partes review of two related patents directed toward methods and systems for automatically activating a train warning device, including a horn,…
