Search results for

In 2010, the EPO introduced the PACE programme, which allowed applicants to accelerate prosecution of patent applications pending before the EPO. Under the PACE programme, the EPO would make every effort to issue a first examination communication within three months of the PACE request.

In June 2015, in a case concerning patent validity, the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) issued a decision (Cass Com 13-15.862) relating to confidentiality obligations to prevent any risk of public disclosure in an inter partes relationship:

On March 23 2016 the new Trade Mark Regulation 2015/2424 will enter into force. This Regulation is the result of the European Commission's pledge to make the new trade mark registration system more accessible, efficient, flexible, reliable and predictable.

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

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.

The Australian Appeal Court has recently clarified the position of software and business method patents in Australia. In Commissioner of Patents v RPL Central Pty Ltd, the Full Federal Court again aligned Australia with a US-centric position akin to that set out in the Alice Corporation case.

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.

As of January 1 2016, Law 4335/2015 has come into force. This law was passed in the context of structural reforms imposed by Greece's creditors as a condition to the bailout with an objective to accelerate judicial proceedings and includes important amendments to the code of civil procedure.

On September 29 2015, the Philippines deposited its instrument of accession to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which entered into force on December 28 2015. The Protocol is a supplementary agreement to the 1992 CBD, and the latter's instrument for the implementation of its third objective, the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources with the end view of contributing to the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable development and human well-being.

Of the total population of the Netherlands of 16.8 million people, 2.2 million have seen the final episode of the second season of "Heel Holland bakt". This makes it one of the most popular television shows in the Netherlands of the past few years.