The PTAB did not err in finding that airplane interior designers would have been motivated to combine prior art to arrive at the space-saving configuration disclosed by the challenged patents. Challenged claims of patents related to space-saving technologies for aircraft lavatories and other aircraft enclosures were correctly determined by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board…
The question whether SPCs should be available for new therapeutic applications of previously approved active ingredients has been a matter of debate ever since the SPC Regulation for Medicinal Products came into force in the European Union more than a quarter-century ago. While a literal reading of the SPC Regulation would clearly seem to exclude…
Whilst the Italian Courts are not famous for awarding substantial damages in IP cases, a recent decision of the Rome Court of Appeal seems to have gone in the opposite direction, albeit taking a very long time to deliver the result. In this article, we report on a case started in 2012, which came to…
A personal account on the oral proceedings I recently had before the Boards of Appeal I recently had oral proceedings at the EPO’s Boards of Appeal for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. As many practitioners may be interested in how this is organized, I am happy to share…
The tendency of English people to be understated in their use of language (other than on Twitter…) is often joked about with continental friends and colleagues. For example, when an English person expresses a slight disagreement, their continental counterpart might have felt more able to be blunt and say that something is just plain wrong. …
As readers of this blog will be aware, the EPO applies a quite peculiar and unique method to the analysis of inventive step, the “problem-solution approach”. This approach breaks the statutory question of Art 56 whether the invention was, having regard to the state of the art, obvious to a person skilled in the art,…
The many opportunities provided by managing patents under an open innovation paradigm have so far not found the attention they deserve among the patent community. The nationalist approaches prevailing in the search for a vaccine to coronavirus provide ample support for this statement. A look at the academic literature on patents helps to understand the…
The provisional application period of the Unified Patent Court Agreement can start before the end of this year. That is the expectation of Winfried Tilmann, consultant at Hogan Lovells and one of the founders of the court. In an interview with Kluwer IP Law, Tilmann comments on the German government’s initiative to re-ratify the UPCA…
One of the most salient features of Spanish patent litigation, in comparison to other countries, such as the United Kingdom, is its extreme rigidity. Judges do not seem entitled to have a sip of water during Court hearings unless a specific provision of the law empowers them to do so. A recent Decision dated 19…
A Study Group appointed by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has recently published Guidelines on Fair Value Calculation of Standard Essential Patents for Multi-Component Products. The Group was composed of high-profile Japanese lawyers and academics. The guidelines represent an important intervention into the ongoing debate concerning the tension between standard essential patents…
