Home » Patents (Page 28)
Category Archives: Patents
Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co Annual Patent Seminar Review: Part 1
IPcopy was fortunate enough to attend the ever entertaining annual patents seminar at Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co. last week. The event kicked off with Gordon Harris’ run through of some of the more interesting cases of 2014. So here, is part 1 of IPcopy’s recap of Gordon’s run through! (more…)
Supreme Court Holds That Certain Aspects of Claim Construction Decisions Merit Deference on Appeal
Today on IPcopy we have a handy review courtesy of Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C. of the recent Teva Pharamceuticals v Sandoz case in the US.
On January 20, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc. The Teva case alters the way the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) will review decisions concerning how patent claims should be construed and whether particular claims are invalid as “indefinite.”
While the ultimate issues of claim construction and indefiniteness will remain legal questions that get a fresh look on appeal, Teva requires that the Federal Circuit defer to the district court’s findings concerning subsidiary facts unless those findings were “clearly erroneous.” Until now, the Federal Circuit has taken a fresh look at even these subsidiary questions, such as whether a person skilled in the art would have understood certain claim terms as having particular meanings.
Teva is likely to impact patent litigation both substantively and procedurally. The substantive changes may take time to develop, whereas certain procedural shifts (e.g., increased reliance on expert witnesses for claim construction) could emerge quickly. (more…)
The Unitary Patent Package: Two years on, what to do now?
Back in December last year IPcopy started to take a look back at the unitary patent package and where we are in delivering this new unitary patent system. Our first “Where are we now?” post provided an overview of the Unified Patent Court itself and the second post looked at the progress there had been towards delivering the system. This entry asks what progress has there been on the road to getting the system up and running. Remember that although the original implementation date (end of 2014) was missed there has been some significant progress in delivering the new system. (more…)
The Unitary Patent, Spain and the EPO Boards of Appeal
The Advocate General released his opinions on the two Spanish challenges to the unitary patent system in November last year and in December there was much discussion online about the independence of the Boards of Appeal at the EPO.
Anyone curious about whether the developments at the EPO might be relevant to the Spanish challenges to the unitary patent are encouraged to head over to Dr Ingve Stjerna’s website (link below) and read his latest paper ” Unitary patent and court system – Advocate General’s Statements of Position: Superseded by reality”.
Dr Stjerna has kindly given permission for us top reproduce the introduction to his paper below: (more…)
The Unitary Patent Package: Two years on. What progress has been made?
Back in December last year IPcopy started to take a look back at the unitary patent package and where we are in delivering this new unitary patent system. Our first “Where are we now?” post provided an overview of the Unified Patent Court itself. This entry asks what progress has there been on the road to getting the system up and running. Remember that although the original implementation date (end of 2014) was missed there has been some significant progress in delivering the new system. (more…)
The UPC in London: a look at the location options
The long road to the UPC
In the last week or so discussion around the potential location of the UPC in London has surfaced again with news that the UPC Taskforce has informally approached a number of groups including IPLA, IP Federation, EPLAW and others for their views of a couple of potential sites for London’s UPC divisions. Full details of the two sites in question can be found here.
After reading the IPKat articles (1, 2) on the subject, IPcopy reached out to the UPC Taskforce and others to try and glean some additional information on the issue. This is presented below along with, for what it’s worth, this ipcopywriter’s personal views on the issue. (more…)
Is it worth suing? – a gambler’s perspective
In a previous post (“Before you sue …” of 29 April 2014), I considered the business and other relationships that might rationally inhibit your client from suing for patent infringement, or even making any approach to the infringer. Now suppose that the client is in fact not so inhibited (and assume also, as in the previous post, that he is not a PAE = patent assertion entity = NPE = non-practising entity = patent troll). Should legal costs deter your client from suing? In (for instance) big pharma disputes, both the significance of the infringement and the financial resources of the patent owners are usually such that legal costs are ultimately not a deterrent to litigation. But if the scale of infringement is moderate – with the client expecting if he wins to gain lowish millions in damages and future royalties – legal costs need careful consideration before litigation is begun. (more…)
IPcopy’s Top 10 Posts from 2014
It’s nearly the end of 2014 which means that, along with the rest of the World+dog, it’s time to wheel out an End-of-Year ListTM of some description.
So here, in reverse order to try and build a modicum of excitement, are our Top 10 most read posts from 2014.
10. Unpacking the Trunki Judgement: Designs and Copyright with Magmatic vs PMS International
In at number 10 is a post from 2013 relating to the Trunki case in the High Court. Things have moved on now and we’ve had a Court of Appeal decision (see here) and more recently still the Supreme Court has given permission to appeal the Court of Appeal decision. Full details regarding the Supreme Court appeal can be found here but the “legal issue in this case relates to the significance attached to the fact that a graphical representation of a Community Registered Design shows no surface decoration”. (more…)
Unitary patent: News Nuggets (December 2014)
It’s very nearly Christmas but just before we all go off to stuff ourselves with turkey and overdo it slightly on the eggnog, here’s a quick update on some unitary patent news including a possible venue for the UPC in the UK. (more…)
IPcopy 