The UK Parliament closed down for business yesterday, preceding the general elections of 8 June 2017. It means parliamentary approval of legislation which is necessary for UK ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement will be delayed. Inevitably, this will lead to postponement of the start of the Unitary Patent system as well. After earlier…
In Germany, the winning party is able to recover a significant amount of its costs from the losing party. This cost reimbursement, which is based on a statutory fee schedule, depends on the value of the case. The amount of recoverable fees can be quite significant; the maximum in infringement proceedings would be around slightly…
UK prime minister Theresa May’s decision to call early general elections for 8 June 2017 could spell trouble for the Unitary Patent system, as it may delay the UK’s ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. Nobody said the creation of a new patent system covering all EU member states was going to be easy….
Given the furore surrounding Birss J’s decision on the non-technical issues in Unwired Planet v Huawei earlier this month, which included the first determination of FRAND terms by an English Court (reported on by my colleague Rachael here), it would have been easy to miss the first appellate Court judgment on the related technical issues…
by Nicholas Round At the start of this month, the UK Supreme Court took a break from its recent post-Brexit work interpreting (and developing) constitutional principles to hear an intellectual property matter. This rare Supreme court foray for a patent produced a ripple of excitement across the UK IP litigation community not least because (uniquely…
by Rachael Cartwright On 5 April 2017, Mr Justice Birss handed down his highly anticipated, lengthy and potentially controversial judgment on the FRAND licensing and competition law aspects of the long running Unwired Planet patent saga. Running at 163 pages, and a mere 807 paragraphs, the judgment sets out the history and fundamental principles of…
‘The UK will ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) in March, most likely before the Brexit article 50 is triggered.’ It was only last month this scenario was described by the UPC Preparatory Committee during a conference in Amsterdam. By now, we know this has been overly optimistic, but is it a problem for the…
Will the Unitary Patent project become operational on 1 December 2017? The UPC Preparatory Committee has warned this date ‘is conditional and provided with the clear disclaimer that there are a number of factors that will dictate whether it is achievable.’ But for supporters of the UP and UPC, developments are encouraging. Crucial ratification procedures…
On 3 March 2017, the English Patents Court (Henry Carr J) issued a decision (here) in the joined claims filed by Fujifilm Kyowa Biologics (FKB) and Samsung Bioepis/Biogen (S/B) against AbbVie Biotechnology Limited (AbbVie) for so-called Arrow declarations in relation to dosage regimes of adalimumab (sold by AbbVie under the brand name Humira) for the…
The UK Patents Court upheld the validity of Wyeth’s patent EP(UK) 2,343,308 relating to a combination product comprising a 2086 protein and a PorA protein used in meningitis B vaccines, rejecting GSK’s allegations of lack of entitlement to two of the claimed priority dates, lack of novelty, obviousness (both conventional and so-called “AgrEvo” obviousness), insufficiency…
