In a combined patent infringement and nullity case, the Svea Court of Appeal upheld the validity of Roche Diagnostics’ European patent as far as Sweden was concerned, but held, other than the District Court, that the alleged infringer did not infringe the patent at issue. The Court of Appeal further held that a patent can only be declared partially (in)valid if the patentee has requested a limitation of the claims. Without such a request, the entire patent must be declared invalid.
A summary of this case will be posted on http://www.Kluweriplaw.com
[...]In its “Leflunomid” decision of 24 July 2012 (Case X ZR 126/09), the FCJ declared a patent claim to be invalid which covered a combination of leflunomide and teriflunomide, on the grounds that it had long been known in the prior art (for 100 years) that some leflunomide spontaneously and unavoidably converts teriflunomide over time (by a ring opening process). The combination was therefore obvious to the expert. The decision will be published in the Kluwer IP case databank.
The plaintiff in the case at issue was a generic company which had launched what it thought was a patent-free mono-product containing just leflunomide. However, due to the conversion of some leflunomide into terifl [...]
The Court held that a decision by the EPO relating to the UK designation was not capable of challenge. In any event, the procedure chosen by the claimant to challenge the decision (an application to correct the UKIPO register based on Rule 50 of the Patents Rules 2007) was wrong, because it required the consent of the claimant (which would clearly not have been forthcoming). An application for rectification of the Register under section 34 Patents Act 1977 should have been used.
Click here for the full text of this case.
A summary of this case will be posted on http://www.Kluweriplaw.com
[...]The complexities of European patent architecture raise a number of issues relating to the interface between opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office (“EPO”) and infringement proceedings before national courts. A recent case has raised one of such issues, namely: what the impact should be of the revocation of the patent by the EPO in an ongoing infringement action before the national courts.
The debate was sparked by Article 22 of the Spanish Civil Procedure Act, which states that legal proceedings may be terminated without making a decision on costs when there is a supervening loss of object (i.e. the subject matter of the case ceases to exist).
In the case before the Sp [...]
by Henrik Timmann
There is a saying in Germany: Two lawyers add up to three different opinions. Well, for a long time the Federal Patent Court seemed to have been inspired by this saying when deciding on the reimbursement of lawyers’ fees in nullity actions.
Background
Most of you will know about the bifurcated system in Germany. While only civil courts (e.g. the District Court Düsseldorf) are competent to decide on the infringement of a patent, they are not allowed to nullify a granted patent. The latter must be done in nullity proceedings (for reasons of simplification I omit the possibility of an opposition). The Federal Patent Court in Munich is the exclusive venue for such nullity ac [...]
The Supreme Court held that claiming priority of an earlier application requires a direct and unambiguous disclosure in the priority document of all features of the technical teaching as defined in the claims. If the claimed invention is characterized by a particular property of one of its components that has not (clearly) been disclosed in the priority document, and that permits a person of ordinary skill to make a deliberate selection out of a range of different embodiments (here: insensitivity to UV light), the priority document lacks a clear and unambiguous disclosure of the invention.
Click here for the full text of this case.
A summary of this case will be posted on http://www.Kluwer [...]
