The Legal 500

Mistakes in the German translation of a patent application filed in a foreign language can be corrected anytime and do not lead to loss of the patent.

Decision of September 13, 2011 - Case X ZR 69/10 - Diglycidverbindung/Diglycidyl Compounds

If the description of a patent discloses several possibilities to achieve a specific technical effect, but only one of these possibilities is included in the patent claim, an infringement under the doctrine of equivalents can only be assumed if the attacked solution in its specific effects corresponds to the claimed solution and differs in a similar manner as the claimed solution from the non-claimed solution which was disclosed only in the description.

Further to the Myriad decision from the United States (see part 1 of this blog), a European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision from July 2010 demonstrates another potentially significant setback to the validity and enforceability of patents directed to DNA sequences.

2010 may turn out to be a challenging year for applicants and attorneys in the field of biotech patents, especially when it comes to protecting or enforcing existing rights over your favourite stretch of DNA. Recent legal decisions on the patentability and enforceability of biotech patents have produced significant uncertainty regarding what kind of protection remains for product and method claims directed towards DNA sequences.

Considering the remaining gap between the number of applications and granted patents at the European patent office (EPO)(see here), solutions are required in order to reduce burden and enhance examination efficiency for the large number of pending applications.

Patent litigation in Germany to become even more attractive: Federal Supreme Court to implement second patent senate speeding up proceedings.

The administrative council of the European Patent Organisation enacted important changes to the European Patent Convention in March this year. These changes serve the pursuit of the so-called ‘raising the bar’ project of the European Patent Office. This project seeks to improve both the quality and legal certainty during the granting of a European patent. However, it cannot be overlooked that significant numbers of changes are disadvantageous for the applicant. In the future we will endeavour to provide you with recommendations in regards to how you can minimize potentially disadvantageous outcomes.

Dr. Anja Lunze, LL.M.[1] What are the procedural means to invalidate a patent in Germany and in the United States? ^[2] A.Introduction There is a constant increase in the economic importance and value of technical property rights. With the change from production to knowledge economies, the protection of technical inventions is becoming more and more important. This trend is evidenced by the increasing number of patent applications and patent grants worldwide.[3] The practical relevance of technology protection is reflected in the sharp increase in international licensing of these technologies. From a German perspective, most licenses are exchanged with the U.S.[4] With the increasing dependence of a company's market position and balance sheet on the value of a patent portfolio, the question arises as to whether the company's patents are actually legally valid. A patent may be declared invalid with retroactive effect if it is established that the prerequisites for patentability, in particular novelty and inventive step, were not given at the time the patent was filed.  Although patents both in Germany and the U.S. are only granted after they have been examined by the competent patent office, there is, for their entire term, a constant risk that a third party could assert the nullity of the patent in court, relying, for example, on newly found material which had not been considered in the granting procedure.  The present paper gives a comparative overview of the procedures for invalidation of a patent in Germany and in the U.S.

Brochure of the EPO about European law and the practice of the EPO with respect to computer-implemented inventions.

Enforcement Directive 2004/48/EC implemented in German Law. As of September 1, 2008, the enforcement directive 2004/48/EC was implemented in German Law. The underlying idea of the directive is to ensure that the substantive law on intellectual property is applied effectively in the European Community. In this respect, the means of enforcing intellectual property have been amended. Implementation in German law therefore has a great impact on most of the laws concerning intellectual property, inter alia on patent law, design law, trademark law and copyright law. The latest amendments improve the position of the owners of intellectual property significantly.

Again, shortly after the last major reform of the German Copyright Act in 2003, several aspects of the law have been adopted to European legisla-tion, especially EU Directive 2004/48/EC on the Enforcement of Intellec-tual Property Rights ("Enforcement Directive"). The new law became ef-fective Sept. 1, 2008.