NIPC Law

Author Basher Eyre Licence CC BY-SA 2.0   Source Wikipedia Rolls Buildin g Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Birrs)  Evalve Inc and others  v Edwards Lifesciences Ltd (#2) [2020] EWHC 513 (Pat) (12 March 2020) A month after their trial before Mr Justice Birss in  Evalve Inc and others v Edwards Lifesciences Ltd (#1) [ 2020] EWHC 514 (Pat) (12 March 2020 and nearly two months before they know who had won, the parties found themselves back in the Rolls Building which I blogged in  Patents - Evalve Inc. and Others v Edwards Lifesciences Ltd (#1)   29 March 2020 for a further trial before the same judge. The issue in the second trial was whether Edwards Lifesciences Ltd. should be injuncted and, if so, on what terms should it lose the patent action.  In his judgment in  Evalve Inc and Others v Edwards Lifesciences Ltd   (#2) [2020] EWHC 513 (Pat) (12 March 2020) which he delivered the same day as his judgment in the patent action, Mr Justice Birss referred to it a

Author OpenStax College Licence CC BY 3.0   Source Wikipedia Heart Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Birss) Evalve Inc and others v Edwards Lifesciences Ltd [2020] EWHC 514 (Pat) (12 March 2020) This was a patent infringement action. The patents alleged to have been infringed were  EP (UK) 1 408 850 entitled "Devices for capturing and fixing leaflets in valve repair" ("850") and EP (UK) 1 624 810 entitled "Fixation devices and systems for engaging tissue" ("810" )  The claimants, who were the patentee, exclusive licensee and exclusive licensee respectively, complained that the defendant company had infringed those patents.  The defendant denied infringement and contended that the patents were invalid.  The 850 on grounds of obviousness and added matter.  The 810 on the basis of anticipation and obviousness. The action came on for trial before Mr Jusiice Birss between 9 and 13 and 17 and 18 Dec 2019. His lordship gave ju

German Constitutional Court at Karlsruhe by Tobias Helfrich - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42560 Jane Lambert German Constitutional Court  (President Voßkuhle and Constitutional Court Judges Huber, Hermanns, Müller, Kessal-Wulf, König, Maidowski and Langenfeld) Re Unified Patent Court Agreement    2 BvR 739/17 Order of 13 Feb 2020 (20 March 2020) On 19 Feb 2013 the governments of 25 European Union member states including the United Kingdom signed the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court  ("the Unified Patent Court Agreement").  That agreement provided for a single patent court for the territories of all the contracting countries to be known as the Unified Patent Court ( "UPC" ) .  The UPC would resolve disputes relating to European patents in the contracting countries' territories including European patents covering all the contracting countries as a single territory to be known as "unitary p

Author Ashte   Licence CC BY-SA 3.0  Source  Wikipedia "Trilfinders " Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (Judge Hacon)   Trailfinders Ltd v Travel Counsellors Ltd  and other s [2020] EWHC 591 (IPEC) (12 March 2020) This is the first case that I have seen in which the Trade Secrets Directive ( Directive (EU) 2016/943 of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure (OJ 15.6.2016 L 157/1)  has been considered by an English judge. I have written quite a lot about that Directive and I have always taken the view that it creates new rights and obligations while leaving the law of confidence more or less intact (see Jane Lambert The Trade Secrets Directive 7 July 2020 NIPC Law). In   Trailfinders Ltd v Travel Counsellors Ltd and others  [2020] EWHC 591 His Honour Judge Hacon quoted in full the first 7 articles of the Directive.  Citing the Explanat

  Photo showing intermediate age-related macular degeneration Author US National Eye Institute Source Wikipedia Macular Degeneration   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Recorder Campbell)  Master Data Center, Inc v Comptroller   [2020] EWHC 572 (Pat) (11 March 2020) A supplementary protection certificate ("SPC") is an intellectual property right ("IPR") that protects the active ingredients of a pharmaceutical or plant protection product. The IPR comes into being upon the expiry of a patent for the product. SPCs are granted because new pharmaceutical and plant protection products cannot be marketed unless and until they are found to be safe by the relevant national or European authorities. Evaluating the safety of a new drug or plant protection product can take time. As the maximum term of a patent is 20 years the time waiting for such evaluation reduces the effective term of the monopoly. The purpose of an SPC, as Lord Justice Floyd explained in T

Jane Lambert Patents Court (David Stone) Geofabrics Ltd v Fiberweb Geosynthetics Ltd [2020] EWHC 444 (Pat) (5 March 2020) This was an action for patent infringement with a counterclaim  for revocation on grounds of anticipation, obviousness and insufficiency, Mr  David Stone , who tried the action and counterclaim, remarked at paragraph [4] of his judgment: "No new points of law were raised. This is therefore a case which turns entirely on its facts." The did not prevent the distinguished US intellectual property scholar, Prof. Dennis Crouch, from referring to the judgment as a "UK Patent Law Primer" in his excellent blog Patentlyo  (see Dennis Crouch  UK Patent Law Primer: Reading through Judge Stone’s New Opinion   9 March 2020 Patentlyo), Patent in Suit The patent in suit was European patent (UK) 2 430 238 for a "trackbed liner and related methods ". A trackbed is the foundation upon which a railway track is laid. In the