Léon Dijkman’s book The Proportionality Test in European Patent Law Patent Injunctions Before EU Courts and the UPC (Hart Publishing 2023) is now available in print, and I understand that an open-access online edition will soon be available as well.  I read the book in draft several weeks ago, and think it is an excellent contribution to the literature on this emerging topic in E.U. law.  Here is the book description: Does a European patent always entitle its holder to a permanent injunction?   This question has sparked vigorous debate in past years but so far remains unresolved ..read more

The case is, of course, VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corp., unanimous panel opinion by Judge Taranto, joined by Judges Lourie and Dyk.  (For previous mention on this blog of sources discussing the lower court ruling, see here and here.)  In this action, VLSI asserted two patents, the ‘373 Patent titled “Minimum Memory Operating Voltage Technique,” and the ‘759 Patent, titled “System and Method of Managing Clock Speed in an Electronic Device.”  The case was tried to a jury, which found both patents infringed and awarded $1.5 billion for the ‘373 Patent and $675 million for ‘759 ..read more

In its Judgment of October 20, 2022, Case No. 7 O 13016/21, the Munich Regional Court I held that it is permissible to infer that a defendant is not a willing licensee for purposes of the FRAND defense, if the defendant has previously threatened or obtained an antisuit (ASI) or anti-enforcement injunction (AEI) against the SEP holder.  The inference is not appropriate, however, just because the defendant has sought or obtained an ASI or AEI against another entity, in another proceeding or because the patent owner had previously obtained an anti-antisuit injunction (AASI) or anti-antienfor ..read more

I mentioned back in September that the U.S. International Trade Administration (ITA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the USPTO had published a notice, titled "Joint ITA-NIST-USPTO Collaboration Initiative Regarding Standards; Notice of Public Listening Session and Request for Comments," in which they stated they were "seeking stakeholder input on the current state of U.S. firm participation in standard setting, and the ability of U.S. industry to readily adopt standards to grow and compete, especially as that relates to the standardization of critical and emergi ..read more

Christian Helmers and Brian J. Love have posted a paper on ssrn titled Patent Law Reform and Innovation:  An Empirical Assessment of the last 20 Years.  Here’s a link, and here is the abstract: We ask whether the most important U.S. patent system reforms of the last 20 years—elimination of presumptive injunctive relief for victorious patent enforcers in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388 (2006), creation of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in the America Invents Act, and restriction of software’s eligibility for patent protection in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l ..read more

A couple of recent posts on other blogs has led me to consider a topic that Roger Blair and I addressed long ago in our paper The Elusive Logic of Standing Doctrine in Intellectual Property Law, 74 Tulane L. Rev. 1323 (2000).  In that paper, we noted that under U.S. law exclusive licensees have standing to sue for patent infringement (though normally the patentee must be a named party as well), whereas nonexclusive licensees do not.  Doctrinally, the limitation imposed on nonexclusive licensees stems from the fact that under U.S. law a nonexclusive license is merely a permission to u ..read more

While we await the CJEU’s judgment (date not yet announced) in Mylan AB v. Gilead Sciences Finland Oy, Case C-473/22 (see post discussing Advocate General Szpunar’s opinion here), the Supreme Court of the Netherlands has issued a decision addressing whether compensation is due for losses suffered during the period of time a patentee enforced a preliminary injunction concerning a patent that is later revoked.  The case, Menzis Zorgversekeraar N.V. v. AstraZeneca B.V., is briefly excerpted in this post on EPLaw, which links to the decision in the original Dutch and in English translation.&n ..read more

A few weeks back Adrian Crespo published a short post on the Kluwer Patent Blog titled Patent case: Judgment no. 18/2023 of Madrid Court of Appeals (Section32) of 23 June 2023, Spain.  The author writes that, as a result of the decision, “generic companies wishing to launch at risk” should be aware that “the first mover(s) will be held liable for triggering regulatory price reduction and thus for the damages arising from the price gap between the innovator and the generic, even if other third parties have launched at a later point in time.”  The post references a longer summary of th ..read more

As I noted earlier this year, commentators on the Essential Patent Blog, FOSS Patents and IPKat had called attention to a March 2023 decision of the Delhi High Court, Intex v. Ericsson, holding, inter alia, that SEP owners may obtain interim injunctions on the basis of a prima facie case, and reversing a lower court decision imposing more stringent criteria.  Within the past few weeks, a few additional commentaries have appeared, including the following: 1. Enrico Bonadio and Mahak Kansara published a post on the Kluwer Patent Blog titled Recent Indian Case Law on Standard Essential Paten ..read more

1.  Christian Le Stanc recently published a short commentary titled Que fair contre les méchants «patent trolls»? (“What to about patent trolls?’”), Propriété Industrielle, Sept. 2023, pp. 1-2.  The commentary notes a written question submitted earlier this year by French MP Christophe Blanchet to the Minister of Justice, posing this very question, i.e., “If and how the government intends to act to better protect rightsholders and operating companies against the rogue utilization of the courts, specifically in guaranteeing an effective and harmonized application of the proportionalit ..read more