The countdown to the new Unitary Patent system has begun. The Unified Patent Court is expected to open its doors at the start of 2017, preceded by a provisional phase in 2016 for the practical set up…
The lack of provisions on Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) is seen as a major flaw in the new Unitary Patent (UP) system. Initiatives have been taken to address this issue and recently…
Mr Justice Carr has only been sitting as a full time judge for just over a month and yet in his decision of 16 November 2015, he has already produced what this author considers to be a sensible, but…
Readers will not be surprised on reading that the new Spanish Patent Act, which is due to come into force on 1 April 2017, establishes a remuneration right in favour of employees who have made an…
by Dr. André Sabellek
In a recent judgment the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (OLG Düsseldorf) had to deal with the application of the “Specific Mechanism” for parallel imports of…
A patent holder’s application to reissue his patent with altered, broader claims was properly rejected by a patent examiner and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board…
The assessment of inventive step is a legal assessment which can be reviewed by the Supreme Court through what is known as the "cassational appeal". The Supreme Court confirms the validity and…
In an appeal from an opposition decision that maintained the patent, an EPO board refused to admit an auxiliary request that had been filed by the proprietor during opposition and formally re-entered…
...well not really, but the German Federal Court of Justice has recently issued a decision (Kreuzgestänge, X ZR 103/13) that may expose Germany's "Bifurcation System" to even more questions and…
This month of October will fade away, leaving behind it the "Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on Provisional Application", done at Brussels on 1 October 2015, the purpose of which…
