In its judgement of 18 October 2011, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has confirmed that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) do not constitute patentable subject matter, given the ban…
The creation of a Unified Patent Litigation System seems to have a lot of political momentum these days, with one proposal following the other at fairly short intervals. This blog discusses the…
When a party successfully asserted a claim for injunctive relief at court on the grounds of IP-right infringement, but the foreign defendant has no assets in Germany, the problem arises as to how the…
The Court of Justice of the European Union in clarifying the phrase 'civil and commercial matters' in Article 1 of the Brussels I Regulation (No 44/2001) ruled that said Regulation is also applicable…
As the readers will know, the complex architecture of the European patent system allows third parties to challenge the validity of a patent by filing an opposition before the European Patent Office…
On 24 May 2011, the European Commission published the "Proposal for a Regulation concerning customs enforcement of intellectual property rights" (SEC(2011)597 final) to replace the present Regulation…
In October 2009, we reported the UK Court of Appeal’s referral to the European Court of Justice (as it was then known) regarding the meaning of the term ‘the first authorisation to place the product…
Italy has recently filed a complaint with the Court of Justice against Council’s decision of 10 March 2011 no. 167 authorising enhanced cooperation under Art. 20 TEU in the area of the creation of…
Combination products (containing two or more active ingredients) raise difficult questions with respect to supplementary protection certificates (SPCs).
Can a SPC be based on the market authorisation…
A movement is emerging now among the French courts to stay the proceedings in litigations relating to supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) and more precisely relating to the…
