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The America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011 introduced a number of changes to the US patent system, including significantly increasing the options available for challenging the validity of a granted patent. Among these options it is the process of post grant review, a trial proceeding at the new Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which holds the most in common with opposition before the European Patent Office.

Genentech, the plaintiff, owns a patent for an invention titled "vascular endothelial cell growth factor antagonists". Genentech filed an application for the registration of patent term extension in relation to the patent asserting that Genentech obtained an approval of partial changes in manufacturing approval (the disposition), which added a new dosage and administration for its medicine Avastin, whose general name is bevacizumab (the medicine). Regarding the medicine, there was a prior disposition that differs only in dosage and administration.

The debate over the patentability of isolated DNA has raged around the world. Tania Obranovich compares the two Myriad decisions from the highest courts in Australia and the US and explains how the Australian decision has called into question what had long been thought of as a fundamental pillar of Australian patent law

Taking into account the benefits of test data protection, several Latin American countries have integrated proper data protection measures into their national legislation.

In the first of a series of articles looking at hypothetical scenarios involving the UPC, Wouter Pors considers a case involving an implementation patent in the electronics industry

In a recent decision (Kochgefäß [Cooking pan], X ZR 81/13) the Federal Supreme Court (FSC) once again dealt with the requirements of an infringement under the doctrine of equivalence.

Supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) are issued under EU Regulation 469/2009 to compensate for lost patent time because of the pharmaceutical marketing authorisation procedure.

We often see unauthorised repeated filings of trade marks that are similar to other parties' well-known trade marks. Even though in most cases the proprietors of the well-known trade marks successfully cancel the conflicting trade mark at the Commercial Court and get a final and binding decision, it does not necessarily stop the conflicting party filing modified versions of the trade marks at the Trademark Office. However, things may be changing for the better, at least from the perspective of the Commercial Court.

On September 30 2015, the Mexican Internal Revenue Service published in the Official Federal Gazette updated foreign commerce dispositions including those applicable to products such as jewellery, clothing, footwear, tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, pharmaceuticals and software, regarding the obligation to state the principal word mark, design, name-and-design or three-dimensional mark in the manifesto exhibited to Customs. The effective date of the dispositions was November 1.

Austria, like Germany, has had for many decades a dual system for judging patent infringement: infringement itself is the realm of the Commercial Courts (or Penal Courts) while nullity of the underlying patent can only be stated by the Patent Office and its Appellate Courts. Such a nullity decision has then an effect erga omnes which means that the patent is struck out of the registers. That split is mitigated in that the Appeal Courts judging the infringement question are the same as those for the Patent Office decisions and usually decide on nullity prior to their judgment concerning infringement. Only in the proceeding for an interlocutory injunction has the Court to judge nullity of the patent itself as a preliminary question. But very often the patent is upheld in this procedure and the percentage of uncertainty of the Court about it is expressed by the level of security payment imposed on the plaintiff.