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…
The Mobile Word Congress (“MWC”) is the largest mobile trade event in the world and one of the most significant trade fairs taking place in Barcelona. More than 105,000 people attended previous events and more than 2,400 leading companies exhibited their products. Due to its importance, all relevant institutions do their very best each year…
The judgment addresses the question of the scope of the co-inventors’ right to obtain a patent, prior to the grant of the patent. The Supreme Court presented the view that the substance of the co-inventors’ right to a patent allows them to use the invention in an unlimited way and, consequently, obliges them to settle…
The European Patent Office (EPO) is receiving ever increasing numbers of patent applications that include a ‘programmed computer’ as a key part of the described invention. Moreover, this growth in filings is being seen in technical fields that are not traditionally considered to be computer-centric. For example, according to EPO statistics, 40% of new patent…
On October 26, 2018, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) issued a Decision, approving the establishment of a new IP Tribunal within the Supreme People’s Court (the “SPC”) as a national IP appellate court akin to the role of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “CAFC”) in the United States. 1. Summary of…
In light of the Teva/Gilead-judgment handed down on 25 July 2018 by the CJEU (C-121/17) as well as the latest referral from the German Federal Patent Court dated 17 October 2017 in re Sitagliptin III (14 W (pat) 12/17), which is pending as C-650/17, Prof. Meier-Beck, the presiding Judge of the German Federal Supreme Court,…
The preparations for the Unified Patent Court are going on so the court can start functioning as soon as possible if the German Constitutional Court rejects the challenges to the Unitary Patent project. The UPC Preparatory Committee has declared this in an update which was published on its website on 19 december 2018. It is…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed a $139.8 million jury verdict in favor of Sprint Communications against Time Warner for infringement of five Sprint patents related to VoIP technology. The appeals court concluded that the district properly admitted evidence relating to the jury verdict in an earlier, related case brought…
