In a complex and interesting validity and infringement case, the Barcelona Court of Appeals (Section 15), Spain’s most experienced patent court, tackles a plethora of issues: linguistic interpretation of European patents; long-time tolerance of patent infringement; assignee estoppel vis-à-vis third parties; claim construction; and indirect evidence of (non)-infringement of a product claim in cases where,…
Chinese courts heavily rely on evidence to rule a case, and conventionally, notarization is basically the only option when a party collects evidence by itself. However, conventional notarization has its limitations and is not always an efficient approach. With the development of technology, some new forensics methods are emerging and are being explored in trials…
Bayer was not granted an injunction in preliminary proceedings because the Court found that there was a serious chance that Bayer’s patent would be held invalid. The fact that the patent had survived opposition before the EPO was of no influence since new, closer prior art had subsequently been found. Case date: 17 September 2019 Case…
On 9 October 2019, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the finding that a patent directed towards ceramic compounds was sufficient and allowed two procedural appeals on issues of liability. Anan Kasei and Rhodia (“Rhodia”) are respectively the proprietor and exclusive licensee of a patent for ceric oxide compounds for use in catalytic…
A range of values limited only in one direction can be sufficiently disclosed if the invention is not limited to a certain range, but includes a generalizable teaching which goes beyond that and enables the person skilled in the art for the first time to search for further possibilities for improvement and to exceed the…
Since the Ruling of 19 September 2012 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15), this Court has taken the view that when a preliminary injunction is ordered “ex parte“, if it is later lifted, the applicant is always obliged to compensate the defendant for the damages that may have been caused. This conclusion has…
The transposition of the “trade secrets” directive in France allowed the introduction of new legal tools that apply to ex parte investigation measures and infringement seizures (“saisie-contrefaçon”). We propose here a panorama of the first decisions in this area. When it transposed the so-called “Trade Secrets” Directive (EU) 2016/943 of 8 June 2016, French Law…
Times where a lot is written about matters of constitutional law are not necessarily good times. When the wheels of a state or state-like organization engage smoothly with each other and when separation of powers, rule of law and checks and balances are considered as self-evident and given, there is no particular need to spend…
While the EPO published a report late September about the importance of intellectual property rights for the European economy, internally meetings were held by EPO president António Campinos both with the Central Staff Committee and representatives of trade union SUEPO to normalize relations between staff and management. Campinos announced several encouraging measures. Still, there is…
The European Patent Office has today published an advance preview of its annual update to the Guidelines for Examination which will come into force on 1 November 2019. This year, there have been some tweaks to sections on how novelty, inventive step and clarity are assessed. The updates also add detail to discussions on formalities…
