Case Reports

Admissibility before Boards of Appeal at the EPO: Current state of play

The EPO's Technical Boards hear appeals from decisions of the Examining and Opposition Divisions with the primary aim of providing a factual and legal review of the first instance decision and not to...

How the UPC Handles Requests for Confidentiality

Two recently published judgments from the Unified Patent Court clarify how requests for confidentiality, both in respect to parties to the proceedings and in respect of third parties, are handled.

Design Piracy or Functional Necessity: Court Rules on Breast Pump Battle in Chiaro Technology Limited v Mayborn (UK) Limited

The Claimant, Chiaro Technology Limited ("Chiaro"), is the owner of a number of registered designs of which several are incorporated into its product the ‘Elvie', a wearable breast pump.

UPC Declines to Grant Provisional Injunction

SES-imagotag SA v Hanshow Technology Co. Ltd. and others UPC_CFI_292/2023 Order of 20 December 2023 (ORD_596193/2023)[1] SES-imagotag is the proprietor of EP 3883277, which had been opted out of the...

Bioinformatics or Techbio: Semantic musings from a patent perspective

Bioinformatics has become an increasingly discussed topic in our increasingly digital world. Data analysis has always been part of biology but the increasing need and desire to analyse large data...

Service on defendants outside the jurisdiction

Panasonic Holdings Corporation v Xiaomi Technology Germany GmbH & 9 Others (UPC_CFI_219/2023) Order of 8 December 2023 The Claimant argues that defendants 1, 2, and 8 based in China and 7 based in...

End of the line: DABUS reaches its final stop in the UK

On 20 December 2023, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down its judgment in Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks [2023] UKSC 49 in which it unanimously...

National or UPC jurisdiction for damages?

Fives ECL, SAS v REEL GmbH (UPC_CFI_274/2023) Order of 17 November 2023 On 8 August Fives ECL, SAS ("Fives") lodged in hard copy a claim for the determination of damages.

Request for a stay

Astellas Insitute for Regenerative Medicine v Healios KK and Osaka Univerity (UPC_CFI_80/2023) Order of 20 November 2023 On 1 June 2023, Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medicine ("Astellas")...

Penalty Payment Ordered in 10x Genomics v Nanostring

10x Genomics, President & Fellows of Harvard College v Nanostring Technologies Inc and others, UPC_CFI_2/2023, Order of 5 December 2023 [1] ORD_ 577241/2023 Following the grant of a provisional...

Therapists’ passing-off claims, libel and harassment allegations unravelled

This article first appeared in WTR Daily, part of World Trademark Review, in (month/year). For further information, please go to www.worldtrademarkreview.com.

Report on EPO Patent Knowledge Week

The European Patent Office (EPO) has recently held many online conferences but the real highlight has been the Patent Knowledge week. There were three full days on 28-30 November discussing AI, the...

Clause Ambiguity and Contract Disputes: Insights from Capita v IBM (2023)

Introduction This case relates to (as stated by the judge) a "rare dispute as to the construction of a contract where one or both parties do not make some appeal to matters of factual matrix to...

Fast Chips: US PTO launches fast-track examination for semiconductor patents

The USPTO has announced a Semiconductor Technology Pilot Program for fast-track examination of qualifying semiconductor-related inventions. The program is designed to support the US CHIPS Act, which...

Separate revocation claim and counterclaim both to proceed

Meril Italy srl v Edwards Life Sciences Corporation (551308/2023; UPC_CFI_255/2023) Order of 13 November 2023 (ORD_578356/2023) Background On 1 June 2023 Edwards Lifesciences Corporation ("Edwards")...