Intellectual Property Expert Group (ipeg)

Lobbying does pay off

Financial Times reported last Saturday that the EU Commission is expected to push ahead with a proposal to extend the copyright protection for performing artists (singers, musicians) from 50 to 95 years. Two EU commissioners are said to have opposed this move on the grounds it would mainly benefit top selling artists and record companies. Why then going ahead? As usual, the answer is political horse trading. A trade off, the extension in exchange for a more competition among copyright “collecting societies” by offering better (and cheaper) administration for the right to handle an artist’s performing rights. Read the rest of this entry »

Actavis vs Merck and Swiss Claims

We overlooked an interesting Note from Prof. Hal Wegner on UK Court of Appeal decision rendered in May 2008. In Actavis UK Ltd. v. Merck & Co. Inc., [2008] EWCA Civ 444 (Court of Appeal 2008) (Ward, Jacob, Rimer, JJ.), the Court of Appeal followed European Patent Office precedent in Genentech/method of administration of IFG-I, T1020/03 [2006] EPOR 9, approving a pharmaceutical use claim, departing from national precedent in favor of a rule following EPC patent precedent. Read the rest of this entry »

Patent Acquisition and Venture Capital

Last week the Wall Street Journal revealed that a group of tech companies got together to incorporate a new group, called Allied Security Trust. The way it is being described, see the WSJ Law Blog, is that the companies, among which Cisco, Google, Verizon, buy patents they fear might be used against them by patent trolls or NPE’s (non practicing entities, rather like that term, see our earlier blog). Each member puts money in the basket to acquire those patents. All members get a license right to use the acquired patent(s). Here are some thoughts. Read the rest of this entry »

Patent Valuation and Pharma

Patent Valuation is the subject of many debate. With over a 100 methods of “valuing” patents, its difficult to find any good yardstick by which to measure the value of a patent. After all, like many other difficult questions its not only who you ask but also in which context the issue arises. I guess a lawyerish answer on “how much value has a patent?” probably is right on: “it depends”. From a defensive perspective if one considers patents to be crucial for freedom to operate, numbers count. So does quality. It depends on the situation. A party in the middle of patent litigation unable to countersue would pay well for a patent that creates such an opportunity for him. Read the rest of this entry »

Impact on IP of an Irish “no” on Lisbon Treaty?

Now the Irish are voting today on the Lisbon Treaty, and some questions arise whether there will be a vote from the heart or from the brains, we took the opportunity to look into the Lisbon Treaty text to see what has been said about intellectual property.

The Treaty of Lisbon amends the Treaty on European Union (TEU) (essentially the Treaty of Maastricht) and the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC) (essentially the Treaty of Rome), which is renamed the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Read the rest of this entry »

Patent trends in China

Evalueserve commented on our earlier blog “Europe’s Patent Demise” which appeared on the former blog website. As we moved to the IPEG website (from Blogger) it is worth mentioning the comments of Evalueserve and its white paper on China Patent Trends. The comment read as follows:

I read this article on your blog and found it very interesting and informative. Since your article deal with Patents and Intellectual Property, I think you will also be interested in a recent study that we conducted on the China patent landscape. The study talks about the changes that took place in the Chinese patent system in the past 20 years. Read the rest of this entry »

UEFA Euro 2008 and patents

Football is exciting for many, patents only for a few (probably readers of this blog included). So what have patents to do with football mania broken loose with the UEFA Europe 2008 tournament in Austria and Switzerland?

Patents are by and large seen as exclusionary rights, the right to use a novel and non obvious invention exclusively with the exclusion of third parties. Currently patents are not very popular, due to weak patents, overreaching by patent owners. Football (soccer) however is almost the perfect opposite. Some recent organizations have taken the UEFA event as a good moment to reach out as patent professionals to the soccer fans. To you it is whether this is doing any good. Read the rest of this entry »

Patent Exhaustion: Quanta vs LG (US)

The US Supreme Court today delivered its unanimous decision providing new insights into the doctrine of patent exhaustion. The opinion reverses the Federal Circuit and holds that under the exhaustion doctrine applies to the authorized sale of components that “substantially embody” a process patent. Here, Intel’s authorized sale of chip components to Quanta exhausted LGE’s patent rights. See Patently-O and the 53 comments the blog produced.

The impression is that the patentee overreached. Taken the critical approach the US Supreme Court seems to take to current patent practises and the CAFC pro-patent stance, it is not surprising that the Court found LG’s licensing practises to go beyond what the invention was really about and what a reasonable remuneration for the inventive work of the inventor and patent owner should be. See also prof. Hal Wegner on the LG vs. Quanta judgment

Peer-to-Patent Community Patent Review

One would assume that easier access to information worldwide that internet provides would make it easier for Patent Offices to find prior art against a patent application so as to ensure that only real inventions are passing the patent process and make it to an issued patent.

No expert can possibly have the scope, skills and capabilities and knowledge of prior art that deep, individual technical experts anywhere in the world possibly have. Patent Office officials need to understand the patent application in just a limited of hours to determine if an invention is really new and non obvious. Read the rest of this entry »

Düsseldorf Appeal Court overrules Federal Patent Court on Pharma Patent

The Düsseldorf Appeal Court sets new standards in enforcement of patents of pharmaceutical companies against generic manufacturers by granting a preliminary injunction although the patent has been invalidated in first instance by the Federal Patent Court, in Germany the exclusive court having jurisdiction in patent validity disputes.

The case concerns a patent of Eli Lilly (EP 0 454 436, for Lilly’s product Zyprexa) which was declared invalid by the Federal Patent Court in first instance by decision of 4 June 2007. Eli Lilly filed an appeal against this decision to the Federal Supreme Court. After the first instance court decision of the Federal Patent Court generic companies started to distribute generic products falling under the Eli Lilly patent in Germany. Read the rest of this entry »