While real news about one of the most popular topics of this blog, i.e. the UPC, is rare and no one following our blogs regularly (see e.g. 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019) should be greatly surprised about the UK’s decision to back out of the Unitary Patent System, the EPO continues to be a source…
The announcement of the UK government that it won’t participate in the Unitary Patent system has sent a shock wave through the European patent community. One issue is obvious from the reactions to the UK decision: the future of the system, which had been uncertain for some time due to the Brexit and the German…
The IP Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) recently issued a decision in Dunjun v. Tengda ((2019) SPC IP Civil No. 147), holding that the manufacturer’s making and selling of routers directly infringed a telecommunication method-of-use patent even though the manufacturer itself did not perform one single step of the patented method. This article…
Will the Unitary Patent project go ahead without the United Kingdom? According to Kevin Mooney, partner of Simmons & Simmons in London and closely involved in the creation of the Unified Patent Court, that is the biggest issue the remaining Member States will have to tackle now that the UK government has decided not to…
The UK will not be part of the UPC. The Office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has confirmed this to IAM-Media. According to the website, spokesperson Baylee Turner stated: “I can confirm that the UK will not be seeking involvement in the UP/UPC system. Participating in a court that applies EU law and bound by…
by Sabine Möhle, Klemens Stratmann and Thorsten Bausch Decision T 1621/16 of Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.06 deals with a patent concerning a liquid hand dishwashing detergent composition. In a broader context, T 1621/16 will be of interest for practitioners struggling with the allowability of amendments under Article 123(2) EPC based on multiple selections from…
The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) in Germany expects a ruling in case 2 BvR 739/17, concerning the complaint against German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement ‘within the next few months’. An FCC spokesman has declared this in reaction to a query of this blog. Earlier this week, the FCC published the list of…
Two decisions T 0184/17 and T 0603/14 were recently issued concerning admissibility of late inventive step attacks on appeal. Both cases were decided under the old Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal (RPBA), but will likely still be relevant under the increased procedural stringency of the new RPBA. T 0184/17 – A Tea…
In Odiorne v. Winkley (1814), Harvard professor Joseph Story, then sitting as a Judge at a Circuit Court of the District of Massacusetts, upon being called to decide whether a machine infringed a patent wrote, in the context of that case, that “The material question, therefore, is not whether the same elements of motion, or…
The provisions judge determined that there was a serious chance that the patent of Tomra on a self-sealing pressure release apparatus was invalid and thus did not grant a preliminary injunction to prevent marketing by Kiremko of their Strata Invicta system. Case date: 17 January 2020 Case number: C/09/580883 / KG ZA 19-941 Court: Provisions Judge of…
