Procedure

The new French law implementing the London Protocol is immediately applicable, even to European patents granted before the entry into force of this new law. The Court held that the new law was…

The Enlarged Board of Appeal answered the question referred to it by the Board of Appeal in J 2/08. The Enlarged Board of Appeal held that after a decision to refuse a European patent application,…

In the past, Italian courts have regularly dismissed motions for interlocutory (pre trial) declaratory judgements of non infringement in IP cases. The firm belief of the courts was that interlocutory…

European patent practitioners are welcoming the news that the EPO Administrative Council reached a decision on 26 October 2010 to extend the period for responding to a communication under Rule 161…

There are three compulsory rules you must observe when challenging a judge on grounds of bias: 1) Be prepared. 2) Use good reasons. 3) Have a worthy goal. I wish to exemplify this by a hearing I had…

One of the strategies used by manufacturers of generic drugs to try to capture the market of the "reference product" when the patent protecting the latter expires is to present the generic as a cheap…

The Italian Antitrust Authority (Autorità Garante della concorrenza e del mercato) announced on 26 October that it commenced proceedings against Pfizer following a complaint filed by Ratiopharm…

Like other countries, such as Australia or Germany, a "petty" patent or "utility model" can be obtained in Spain for so-called minor inventions. They present a twofold distinction with regard to …

In this blog I report about how the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) has recently eliminated some potential for conflicting decisions in Germany's bifurcated patent litigation system. The separation of…