-
Nov 2, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
This will only be a very short post, but one important new development on the borderline of patent law and antitrust law shall not be left unnoticed on this blog. The European Commission has fined Teva a whopping €462.6 million for abusing its dominant position to delay competition to its blockbuster medicine for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, Copaxone (API: Glatiramer acetate).
-
Nov 1, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
We have long meant to write something about the need, or the lack thereof, for adapting the description to amended claims. The announcement in the second preliminary opinion of Technical Board of Appeal (TBA) 3.3.04 in T 56/21, suggesting a referral of this question to the Enlarged Board of Appeal, combined with the sole appellant’s agreement with such a referral and perhaps a modicum of personal inertia, has kept us from it.
-
Jul 22, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
The first decisions by the Central Division Munich, the Local Division Paris and the Local Division Düsseldorf adjudging a patent’s validity in main proceedings are now out. Taken together, they confirm the initial favourable impression from applications for provisional measures and demonstrate that this Court is fully up to task.
-
Jul 3, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Eden Winlow |Thorsten Bausch |Christian Buchholz |Hetti Hilge
Skip to content In a decision issued today, the Düsseldorf Local Division has ordered the first ever permanent injunction at the UPC following a hearing on 16 May 2024. The injunction covers seven UPC member states: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.
-
Jul 3, 2024 | patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Eden Winlow |Thorsten Bausch |Christian Buchholz |Hetti Hilge
Skip to content In a decision issued today, the Düsseldorf Local Division has ordered the first ever permanent injunction at the UPC following a hearing on 16 May 2024. The injunction covers seven UPC member states: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxemburg and the Netherlands.
-
Jul 2, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
Following months of speculation, EPO Board of Appeal 3.2.01 yesterday issued decision T 439/22 referring questions to the Enlarged Board of Appeal on the extent to which the description and drawings should be used in claim interpretation.
The claim feature at issue was: “in which the aerosol-forming substrate comprises a gathered sheet”.
-
Jun 18, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
The question on how intellectual property and specifically patents can contribute to sustainable innovations that contribute towards the both inevitable and highly desirable transition towards a CO2-neutral economy happened to be the key subject of no less than two conferences that I had the pleasure to attend within the last 5 days. The conference of Prof.
-
Jun 5, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
In project management there is a law known as the Iron Triangle, which states that in delivering any project, there are three points on a metaphorical triangle: time, cost and quality. In other words: how fast can the project be done; how cheaply; and what is the quality of the thing being delivered? Every project manager knows that there is always a trade-off: you can deliver two of these things, but never all three.
For example, imagine your project is to examine patent applications.
-
May 14, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
All in all, the EPO can rightly be proud of the high quality of the translations it currently offers to its users. Many of my clients have been using the EPO’s translation services when (part of) a hearing was in German or French, and I was constantly advised that they considered the translations excellent and were able to follow the hearing very well. So it seems that the EPO has a well running system in place, which sounds just like a happy ending to this post.
-
Apr 17, 2024 | 
patentblog.kluweriplaw.com | Thorsten Bausch
There are now three interesting developments, albeit in quite different areas, which have in common the effort to avoid stepping on banana skins on the path towards a more unified patent system. The first one, published last week, was a decision by the Court of Appeal (CoA) itself, which took the opportunity to clarify that a three member panel consisting only of legally qualified judges neither contravenes Art 9(1) UPCA nor violates Art 6 of the European Human Rights Convention (EHRC).
