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division to maintain the patent in amended form is filed by both patentee and opponent, but later one of the appeals is withdrawn, the principle of reformatio in peius is still applicable, even if more limiting auxiliary claim sets have been filed by the patentee.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,…
The Supreme Administrative Court held that the publication of an application for a European patent that included the description of an industrial design in the relevant journal before the protection for such design was requested meant that the relevant design had been made available to the public and thus was not eligible for registration. With…
The Court of appeal of Paris, in a decision on the merits, has ruled that the SPC covering the combination of ezetimibe and simvastatine is invalid. The decision was rendered on September 25, 2020, in a case opposing Merck and Teva (free translation available here).This is the first decision in Europe on the merits to…
In Linklinear Development Co., Ltd. v. Shanghai Baoye Group Corp., Ltd., [(2019) SPC. IP. Civil. Jur. Fin. No. 2] (November 1, 2019), the IP Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) affirmed a lower court’s decision denying the transfer of Linklinear’s later-filed infringement action to another court that hears a first-filed declaratory judgment action, holding…
The FCJ confirmed that the costs of the participation of a European Patent Attorney (Professional Representative before the EPO) in a patent case before the German civil courts are always recoverable from the losing party pursuant to sec. 143 (3) Patent Act. Case date: 14 April 2020 Case number: X ZB 2/18 (ECLI:DE:BGH:2020:140420BXZB2.18.0) Court: Federal…
