Validity

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…

When challenging the validity of a patent, a decision needs to be made early on as to grounds on which to rely. When it comes to allegations of anticipation and obviousness, the challenger and its…

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…

  The company Laboratoires Medidom (hereinafter referred to as “Medidom”) is the holder of European patent No. 520 414, entitled “Process for the preparation of diacetylrhein”, which concerns “a…

The Court of Appeal has held that the skilled person (which can be a team of individuals) may vary depending on the question in issue (e.g. obviousness, novelty, sufficiency or construction). The…

In this case the patentee (Meyn) was granted a patent (EP 0 530 868) on a device to clean out the intestines of poultry during slaughtering. The enforcement court in Denmark granted an injunction…

In this case, the Court of Appeal of Paris affirmed a judgement of the Court of First Instance of Paris holding that a product "may not acquire novelty simply because it is prepared in a purer form"…

There have not been many decisions in 2010 from the English Patents Court that are likely to be regarded in future decades as seminal judgments. However, in the author’s view, the judgment of the…

What happens when the same invention is covered by a French national patent and a European patent claiming the priority of the French application and when the European patent lapses after having…