Search results for

The 2015 Patent Act amendment changed the long-established rule, and determined that the employer may select in advance whether the right to obtain a patent for an employee invention belongs to the employer or the employee when the invention is made. The amendment comes into force on April 1 2016.

The patent law regime in Singapore is governed by the Patents Act (Chapter 221) which is based generally on the UK Patents Act 1977. The Patents Act was amended in 1995 to delete Section 13(2) of the Patents Act 1994 [UK Patents 1977, S 1(2)] which declared that certain subject matter, such as "a scheme, rule or method for performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business, or a program for a computer", are not inventions for the purposes of the Act and are therefore not patentable. This left the law open for including business methods and computer implemented inventions as patentable subject matter.

In a recent ruling (February 2 2016) the Court of Appeal The Hague assessed the validity of a patent and SPC of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The Court further decided on awarding costs based on European directive 2004/48/EC.

Every week the Managing IP blog rounds up some of the interesting and unusual IP news appearing on the web. Here’s a selection of recent items

A new collective agreement on employee inventions, negotiated between two major parties of the Swedish labour market, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv) and the Council for Negotiation and Cooperation (PTK – being a body of 25 trade unions), has recently entered into force in Sweden. The new agreement, commonly known as The Inventor Agreement, applies to employee inventions reported to the employer as of December 1 2015.

Recently, the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) had to decide on the request of a complainant, himself sued for patent infringement, to become a party in an ex parte reinstatement procedure concerning the allegedly infringed patent. After the European patent was maintained in opposition in amended form, the patentee failed to perform the required validation steps in time before the German Patent and Trademark Office (GPTO). Having been informed by the GPTO about the loss of his German patent, the patentee requested reinstatement and simultaneously performed the required validation actions.

Cloud services make storing and accessing large amounts of information easier and cheaper. This gives in-house IP counsel the perfect opportunity to refresh their trade secrets strategy, argue Mark Ridgway and Annsley Merelle Ward

2015 saw a spate of noteworthy trade mark cases in the Malaysian courts. Geetha Kandiah and Rebecca Chong look at the lessons learned

In Belgium, a patent is automatically granted, meaning the grant procedure does not involve a substantive examination of the application, with the provision that a search report has been issued.

Judges in China have expressed different views regarding whether a court in the place of receipt of goods has jurisdiction in patent infringement cases. Xiaolin Wang and Harlem Lu explain the issues