Part of any smart patent litigation strategy is to seek the right venue. This is true for Europe as well as for the US. Among practitioners it is known that Texas is a preferred venue for patent litigation in the US, as the judges are assumed to be patentee friendly and, important, not inclined to immediately bow to defendant’s strategies to unduly complicate and manipulate litigation by throwing in  litigation tactics with the (sole) intention to complicate the litigation, so as to gain time and to force the plaintiff...

Popular belief in patent litigation circles is that defendants, accused of a patent infringement like to turn to the UK courts to get the patent invalidated. The general presumption is that UK patent courts are skeptical of what comes out of the European Patent Office and are more receptive to invalidity arguments than their German, Dutch or French peers. Brian Whitehead, however,  is of the opinion that English courts appear to have relaxed the formerly strict requirements for obviousness.  He relies purely on the UK courts’...

Is “independent invention” a cure against trolls in that it can be argued that infringement cannot be established in case of an “independent invention”? No it is not. A  lot of confusion, misunderstandings, half-truths, nonsensical quasi-lawerly talk exists around the term “independent invention“. The term is often “spittered” about as means against patent infringement actions by NPEs or patent trolls, but has no basis in patent law and lacks a common understanding and agreement on what it means...

We overlooked an interesting Note from Prof. Hal Wegner on UK Court of Appeal decision rendered in May 2008. In Actavis UK Ltd. v. Merck & Co. Inc., [2008] EWCA Civ 444 (Court of Appeal 2008) (Ward, Jacob, Rimer, JJ.), the Court of Appeal followed European Patent Office precedent in Genentech/method of administration of IFG-I, T1020/03 [2006] EPOR 9, approving a pharmaceutical use claim, departing from national precedent in favor of a rule following EPC patent precedent. …

When is a product claim in a patent insufficient? That is the core question in the judgement of April 10 by the UK Court of Appeal in Generics (UK) Limited v Lundbeck A/S in an appeal against the High Court Mr Justice Kitchin’s judgement in 2007. The issue is to which the extent of the monopoly given by a product claim in a patent. Kitchin J had extended the application of the Biogen test for patent insufficiency such that the scope of the monopoly for a product claim could be severely reduced. Lundbeck’s successful appeal,...

There has been another development in the continuing saga of the UK’s interpretation of what is and is not patentable subject matter in relation to computer programs.In Symbian’s Patent Application (Patents Court, 18 March 2008), Patten J overturned a decision of the UK-IPO to refuse a patent application because it related to nothing more than a computer program. In his judgment Patten J observed that the UK-IPO’s decision illustrates the …

Today, the UK court (Mr. Justice Floyd) rendered its decision in the Qualcomm vs Nokia case. The case in the UK is slightly different than similar fights that take place in Netherlands and Germany in that Qualcomm is suing Nokia in the UK under 2 patents (EP 0,629,324 and EP 0,695,482) both related to power control. European Patent 0,629,324 (“’324”) relates to an apparatus for controlling the way in which the mobile telephone reduces power consumption by monitoring a channel for incoming messages intermittently. The second,...

As blogger just learned, on Christmas Eve, one of Europe’s great patent judges, Lord Justice Pumfrey, passed away quite unexpectedly at the much too young an age of 56. He was the author of many judgements that changed the patent landscape in the last years, not just for the UK but for many European patent professionals, who followed his learnings closely. He was admired and respected and we surely feel deeply sorry that we have to miss a great judge.see also Times Online, Jan. 3

Further to our earlier post about the SanDisk vs. Philips judgement by Pumfrey J, here is a verbatim account on what the court contemplated about the question to what extent this case leaves open issues for the Court of Appeal to decide on jurisdiction “I am of the view that if this jurisdiction needs to be worked out and if there is no substantial challenge to my approach to the cases such as they are, then this is a matter where the Court of Appeal should themselves decide is a suitable occasion for working out such...

In a high profile legal battle on mp3 patents, UK Judge Pumfrey rendered its judgment in a request for interim injunction by SanDisk against Philips et al. The first four defendants (the patentees, registered in the Netherlands, France, France and Germany respectively) own a number of European patents relevant to mp3 technology. The patents have been the subject of an intensive licensing campaign carried out on behalf of the patentees by the fifth defendant, Sisvel, an Italian licensing company. Sisvel claims that five of the...

The UK Court of Appeal handed down a judgment on Wednesday 7 February in the UK “Blackberry”case, RIM v Inpro (Inpro is a technology licensing company or, some might say, a “troll”). As expected, the Court upheld the first instance decision revoking Inpro’s European patent in the UK on the grounds of obviousness. Inpro’s patent claimed a system for enabling web pages to be made available to hand-held computers via proxy servers based on (amongst other things) screen size and resolution, and...

On January 16th the UK Court of Appeal in Angiotech Pharm., Inc. v. Conor MedSystems Inc., [2007] EWCA Civ 5 (Jacob, L.J.) affirmed an invalidity ruling of critical claim 12 of Angiotech’s patent [2006] EWHC 260 (Pat) (Pumfrey, J.), while the very next day – in counterpart litigation – the The Hague District Court in The Netherlands upheld the same claim in Conor MedSystems Inc. v. Angiotech Pharm., Inc., No. 258022/HA ZA 06-261 (judgment January 17, 2007).The patent is about taxol as the factor to be used in a drug...

On October 27, the UK Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in two cases concerning the exclusions to patentability for business methods and computer programs under Article 52(2) and 52(3) of the EPC (s1(2) PA 1977), the first between Aerotel Ltd vs. Telco Holdings Ltd. cs. and the other in the matter of Application Neal William Macrossan.   Mr. Macrossan’s patent application claimed a patent for an automated method of producing and acquiring the documents necessary to incorporate a company, through communication between...

Further to our earlier blogger on the UK Patent Office public consultation on the inventive step requirement in UK patent law, the Office published its preliminary analysis of the responses received to this public consultation in early August. Conclusions At this stage, there is not really much to report. The review of inventive step was undertaken in response to international concern regarding patent quality worldwide but the preliminary analysis concludes that inventive step is generally handled appropriately at the UK Patent...