Germany has resumed preparations for the ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. A draft bill for the implementation of the UPCA was published on 9 December 2016 by Justice Minister Heiko Maas. Together with the UK, Germany is one of the two countries that still have to ratify the UPCA before the Unitary Patent system…
by Steven Willis Yesterday, the Patents Court handed down yet another decision in the Sisyphean pregablin litigation, this time refusing Sandoz’ application to vary the Order for Injunction which resulted from Arnold J’s October 2015 decision (“Sandoz I”) to injunct Sandoz following its launch of a full label pregabalin product (“Pregabalin Sandoz”). As is typically…
IP Australia has recently published its Exposure Drafts for the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2017 and the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Regulations 2017 for public comment. The amendments aim to “align and streamline the processes for obtaining, maintaining and challenging intellectual property (IP) rights” and to ” reduce the regulatory burden for businesses that…
The federal district court in Los Angeles did not err in granting default judgment and a permanent injunction to United Construction Products, Inc. dba Bison Innovative Products on its patent infringement and unfair competition claims against Tile Tech, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled (Tile Tech, Inc. v. United…
The UK signed the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the Unified Patent Court on 14 December 2016 in Brussels. It is an important step in the process that should lead to UK ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The UK still needs to pass national legislation, a so-called statutory instrument (SI), to enact…
by Rüdiger Pansch for rospatt osten pross In two recent decisions, the Federal Supreme Court developed its case law on entitlement strengthening the position of the plaintiff in entitlement proceedings. Judgment of 27 September 2016, docket no. X ZR 163/12 (“coating process”) This decision develops the case law on benefits of use in cases of…
by Chloe Dickson On 30 November 2016 the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in the latest chapter of the Hospira v Genentech epic surrounding Genentech’s blockbuster drug trastuzumab (Herceptin®) (Hospira v Genentech [2016] EWCA Civ 1185). This instalment concerned a patent for use of the antibody trastuzumab in combination with a traditional chemotherapeutic agent,…
As readers may know from previous blogs, a new Patents Act (“Law 24/2015, of 24 July, of Patents”) is due to come into force in Spain on 1 April 2017. So we are almost there. In a nutshell, the new Patents Act seeks to improve the prestige of Spanish patents by abandoning the possibility of…
The new Visser is out The 24th edition of the book The Annotated European Patent Convention by Derk Visser has been published on 6 December 2016. The book is updated till 15 November 2016. A few important amendments in the book are: The changes in the latest edition of the Guidelines for Examination in the EPO, valid…
The festive season is almost upon us once again. Since many British and other European folk (not to mention our American cousins) are feeling somewhat exhausted by the political upheavals that 2016 has brought with it, the Kluwer patents team thought that there could be few better ways to take one’s mind off the current turmoil…
