Currently, Ireland is not a member of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), although the country is a long-standing member of the European Union. As we have already reported, the UPC is a new court that deals with the infringement and validity of European patents and unitary patents, which are patents...
Protective Letters and Patent Infringement
A protective letter is a legal submission that can be filed by an alleged infringer in a patent infringement case. Its purpose is to provide the court with information about the alleged infringer’s position on the patent in question. The letter can include arguments against infringement of the patent, about the...
Trade Fairs, the European Unified Patent Court and Infringement
Recent decisions in the local divisions of the European Unified Patent Court demonstrate that the UPC system is patent (plaintiff) friendly and is prepared to grant emergency injunctions at short notice to stop alleged infringers from showcasing products on trade fairs. Indeed, the first preliminary injunction issued by the UPC...
Inventions based on Data Collection
The European Patent Office is still developing its case law on inventions which involve the collection and use of data. A few years ago, the Enlarged Board of Appeal in case G1/19 reviewed a patent application relating to the simulation of the movements of pedestrians. It concluded that the application...
US Clampdown on High-Tec Investments
US President Joe Biden's Executive Order clamping down on high-tec investments in China has also major implications for European companies. The order must be complied with by any "United States Person" and this includes not only companies with headquarters in the US or organised under laws of US states, but...
First UPC Preliminary Injunction
The Düsseldorf location has been one of the most active courts in national German patent litigations and widely used by international patentees. It has now issued the first known ex-parte injunction in the Unified Patent Court (UPC). The patent in dispute relates to EP2546134 which is a “Combination structure of...
Artificial Intelligence, Inventive Step and Disclosure
A further decision from the European Patent Office’s Boards of Appeal illustrates the challenges faced by patent applicants when filing for patents for artificial intelligence (AI) inventions but also provides a number of suggestions on the level of detail that the patent office requires when disclosing the invention. The decision...
Standard Essential Patents at the European UPC
The Chinese company Huawei has apparently become the first company to file a patent infringement suit based on a standard essential patent in the new European Unitary Patent Court (UPC), according to a report in the IAM magazine. So-called "Standard Essential Patents" (abbreviated to SEPs) are patents protecting a technology required...
File Wrapper Estoppel in the Unified Patent Court
File-wrapper estoppel (also call "prosecution history estoppel") is a term used to indicate that an applicant of a patent application that has made "narrowing amendments" to the claims of the patent application, for example to take into account prior art, may be precluded from broadening the scope of their granted claims to...
Euro Parliament agrees text of AI Act
The European Parliament approved on Wednesday, 14th June, a revised version of the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA). The text will now pass to the so-called "trilogue", at which will be discussed with the European Commission and the Member States. The AI Act appears to be on a path to adoption in...