Three PTAB decisions were decided by APJs invalidly appointed, but two Circuit Judges would find the defect wholly cured by Federal Circuit’s recent Arthrex decision. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has vacated three Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions following inter partes review of three patents on the ground that patent…
The constitutional complaint holding up the start of the Unified Patent Court will be decided upon in the first quarter of next year. Justice Peter Huber of the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), who is overseeing case 2 BvR 739/17, has said this in an exclusive interview with Managing IP. Huber added that the time…
The Dutch authorities have handed over to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) its new premises, located in the Zuidas business area of Amsterdam. On 15 November EMA’s Executive Director Guido Rasi ‘signed the lease agreement and thanked the Dutch authorities for reaching this important milestone on time’, according to a report on the EMA website. EU…
Our friends from the EPLAW Patent Blog recently published an interesting blog commenting on the judgment of 29 March 2019 from the Court of Appeal of Barcelona (Section 15) where, among other aspects, the requirements for requesting the limitation of a European patent before the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office (“SPTO”) were discussed. As explained…
The patent licensee ASSIA was held to be entitled to conduct the present infringement action but was not successful in its claim. Independent claims 1 and 16 were deemed invalid because of added subject matter (intermediate generalization) and in an obiter dictum the court also mentioned that the claimant had not succeeded in proving infringement….
Back to sad old days at the European Patent Office. Last Thursday, hundreds of EPO staff members protested outside the Portuguese Embassy in The Hague against the lack of justice and deteriorating working conditions at the EPO. They are also concerned about the way the management is pushing for reforms without proper consultation of staff…
The jurisprudence of the Court of Justice for the European Union is not excluding the possibility to allow a non-EU Member State forming part of the UPCA. This is one of the conclusions in ‘EU Patent and Brexit’, a research paper which was requested by the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs and commissioned, overseen…
The Federal Court of Justice rejected a joint request by the parties to stay proceedings because of ongoing settlement negotiations. It held that the parties’ request had been made too late and was therefore no longer considered appropriate. The parties should have taken the scheduling of the hearing, but at the latest the approaching of…
The compatibility of the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) and two pieces of draft legislation submitted for its ratification in Germany with the German Constitution was examined only very selectively, whereas the compatibility with EU law was apparently not examined at all. This is the conclusion of the Düsseldorf based patent lawyer Ingve Björn Stjerna,…
The Supreme Court handed down its judgment on 23 October 2019, marking the end of a 13-year struggle between the inventor, Prof Ian Shanks, and Unilever for compensation in relation to an invention relating to disposable glucose monitoring equipment. The judgment of the Supreme Court provides valuable guidance on the matters to be taken into…
