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In recent years the Japanese IP High Court and the Board of Patent Appeals (BPA) at the Japan Patent Office have rejected many patent applications and also nullified many granted patents by simply using an obvious-to-try reasoning to prove obviousness. This has received heavy criticism from the industry and the bar groups in Japan.

A good portion of the practice of most IP law firms is in litigating against parties that infringe on US patents. But it is important to understand that infringement may occur in three different forms: direct infringement, inducement of infringement and contributory infringement.

The Indonesian government's IP enforcement team, known locally as TimNas, has begun the process of consulting with stakeholders about its IP enforcement strategy for 2010.

The German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) has repeatedly emphasised in a series of decisions (Seitenspiegel, 2005; Kettenradanordnung, 2007) that the interpretation of a patent claim is a question of law and thus may not be committed to the court expert, but is the original duty of the court.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO has recently decided case G 1/07 dealing with the exclusion from patentability of surgical methods.

On December 28 2009 the Supreme People's Court of China issued the Interpretation on Several Issues as to the Application of Laws Concerning Patent Infringement Cases. The Interpretation came into effect on January 1 2010.

In the Austrian legal system a concept or defence based on acquiescence or past tolerance of behaviour is unknown – only the statute of limitation exists. Acquiescence has been implanted into it as alien element only in the Trade Mark Law and in the Law Against Unfair Competition as far as it regulates commercially used signs when Austria in 1999 finally implemented fully Article 9 of the EU Trade Mark Harmonisation Directive. No wonder that Austrian trade mark owners and courts still struggle with this concept.

There are many reasons why counterfeiting should be taken seriously. Fake goods pose a threat to public health and safety. Further, counterfeit products cost brand owners millions of dollars each year in lost revenue.

The case deals with questions from the Dutch Court of First Instance on the interpretation of the Biotech Directive in relation to the general patent law. Especially important was whether a claim directed to a gene sequence would have a scope of protection that was determined by the normal patent law (an absolute scope of protection like any chemical compound) or whether the protection of a gene sequence would be limited to the protection as defined in the European Directive on the Protection of Biotechnological inventions (Directive 98/44/EG), a purpose-bound protection.

The obligation to protect undisclosed test or other data necessary for the marketing approval of pharmaceutical or agricultural chemical products established by Article 39.3 of TRIPs is a matter of intense debate. It can be argued that scientific data protection constitutes a new and autonomous IP category, and that acknowledging data protection as a new IP category is the only suitable way to protect the data originator's right. GATT- TRIPs provides this acknowledgment.