While the UK is holding its breath ahead of Parliament’s vote on the Brexit deal, many patent specialists think a ‘no deal’ will be a fatal blow for the UK’s ambition to stay in the Unitary Patent system. But according to Alfonso Sabán, attorney at law and political scientist in Madrid, it is obvious that,…
The Court of Appeal of the Hague confirmed that a technical effect may only be cooroborated by post-filed data if it is sufficiently plausible from the description. Further, extension of the process (counter)claim at a late stage in the proceedings was not permitted as it conflicts with efficient case management. Case date:11 December 2018 Case…
This decision by the FCJ confirms that the cited prior art should, generally, provide concrete suggestions, hints or at least provide other reasons beyond the recognizability of the technical problem to seek the solution of a technical problem in the way as presented in the patent. Case date: 10 July 2018 Case number: X ZR 65/16 Court: Federal…
A recent judgment of 18 December 2018 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal has partially reversed a judgment of 9 December 2016 from Barcelona Commercial Court number 4, which had rejected the locus standi of a non-exclusive licensee to file a patent infringement action. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows: A…
For establishing inventive step it is not necessary that the prior art contains a pointer for combination, only that in the relevant prior art an incentive was present to combine the prior art. Case date: 27 November 2018 Case number: C/09/534649/HA ZA 17-651C/09/533643/HA ZA 17-599200.237.828/01 Court: Court of Appeal of The Hague A full summary of…
What were the most popular articles of the Kluwer Patent Blog in 2018? A look at the list shows that – even more strongly than in previous years – one topic drew more readers than anything else: the functioning of European Patent Office. Episodes of last year’s series on the EPO by Thorsten Bausch –…
Regardless of whether someone intends to enforce their own supplementary protection certificate (SPC) or finds themself at the receiving end of an SPC infringement action, the question which grounds of invalidity justify the revocation of an SPC may become highly relevant. This question is all the more intriguing in light of the CJEU’s corresponding case…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has denied attorney fees to a medical device manufacturer in a dispute relating to an expandable surgical reamer patent, ruling that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the prevailing defendant’s motion for attorney fees. The district court rejected the plaintiff’s proposed claim…
Applying the so-called ‘Actavis Questions’ (further to the Supreme Court decision in Actavis v Eli Lilly), the Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion from the Patents Court on the issue of infringement. However, as the Court of Appeal upheld the first instance Court’s decision that the patent was invalid, this ultimately did not change…
The Barcelona patent courts have provided further guidance on preliminary injunctions within the context of trade fairs, where the standard of evidence is higher than usual. Indirect evidence, such as an expert report based on a video of the competitor’s allegedly infringing machine, is generally not good enough. If the patentee lacks direct, “hands-on” evidence…
