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…
On 20 December 2019, The Danish Maritime and Commercial court ruled in a preliminary injunction case regarding a patented rat barrier. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant should be prohibited from producing, marketing and selling products in numerous European countries. The case concerned whether the patentee, Nordisk Innovation ApS, could obtain a preliminary injunction preventing…
The Court held that it had no jurisdiction to grant fortification of a cross-undertaking for damages where the injunction had been discharged. Further, the Court held that even if it had jurisdiction to do so, the evidence as to Napp’s financial position did not justify fortification of the cross-undertaking. Case date: 15 April 2019 Case number:…
by Ben Millson IPCom’s latest foray into standard essential patent litigation has reached a surprising outcome at first instance; its patent was held valid, essential and infringed in amended form by Recorder Douglas Campbell QC, sitting as a judge of the Patents Court, in a judgment dated 28 January 2020. However, Vodafone succeeded in relying…
It’s been almost four years since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union and debates started among patent specialists what consequences this would have for the UK’s role in the Unitary Patent system. Last Friday the Brexit finally became a reality and on Monday prime minister Boris Johnson gave a speech on the…
The Board’s inter partes review decision declaring unpatentable a system that monitors and controls remote devices was reversed. Based on improper claim construction, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reversed a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board declaring a patent system that monitors and controls remote devices as unpatentable….
The inventor designated in a European patent has to be a human being and not a machine. That is the core message of two recent EPO refusals of patent applications in which an AI system was designated as the inventor. The EPO decisions, concerning the applications EP 18 275 163 and EP 18 275 174, both filed in…
