NIPC Law

Author Basher Eyre Licence CC BY-SA 2.0    Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Fancourt) T eva UK Ltd v Janssen Pharmaceutica N.A . [2020] EWHC 3157 (Pat) (16 Nov 2020) This was an application by the claimant for extended disclosure of correspondence and other documents under the PD51U-Disclosure Pilot for the Business and Property Courts . An issue in an action for a declaration that a supplementary protection certificate ("SPC")  is invalid and should be revoked is whether the active ingredient of the SPC has already been protected by an earlier certificate.  The claimant has alleged that correspondence between the European Medicines Agency ("EMA") and the defendant would assist the court to determine that issue. Accordingly, the claimant applied for the following disclosure under Model C of the practice direction: "1. Correspondence and/or communications between the European Medicines Agency, EMA, and Janssen-Cilag, or any Janssen group company or agen

                        Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (David Stone)    Freddy SpA v Hugz Clothing Ltd and others [2020] EWHC 3032 (IPEC) (19 Nov 2020) This was an action for breach of a settlement agreement, patent and unregistered design right infringement and passing off. There was also a counterclaim from the defendants for revocation of the patent and unjustified threats.  The defendants instructed specialist solicitors and counsel to defend the claim until 5 June 2020. On that day the solicitors came off the record and the defendants took no further steps in the proceedings. The action and counterclaim came on for trial before Mr David Stone sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court on 5 Oct 2020.  By his judgment of 19 Nov 2020, Mr Stone struck out the counterclaim under CPR 39.3 (1) (c)  and gave judgment to the claimant on the claim (see  Freddy SpA v Hugz Clothing Ltd and other s [2020] EWHC 3032 (IPEC) (19 Nov 2020)). The Parties The claimant is an It

  Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (HH Judge Melissa Clarke) Communisis Plc v The TALL Group of Companies Ltd and others [2020] EWHC 3089 (IPEC) (17 Nov 2020) This was a claim for patent infringement and a counterclaim for revocation on grounds of obviousness and excluded matter. The action and counterclaim came on for trial before Judge Melissa Clarke on 14 and 15 July 2920. By her judgment of 17 Nov 2020 she found the patent to be invalid and not to have been infringed (see  Communisis Plc v The TALL Group of Companies Ltd and other s [2020] EWHC 3089 (IPEC) (17 Nov 2020). The Parties The claimant was Communisis Plc, the proprietor of UK patent no GB2512450   entitled "A method of generating a payment/credit instrument", the patent in suit.  The defendants were The TALL Group of Companies Ltd and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Checkprint Ltd, and DLRT Limited.  Each party manufactures cheques, cheque books and cheque fraud prevention systems to major bank

Jane Lambert   Patents Court (Mr Justice Birss) IPCom GmbH & Co Kg v HTC Europe Co Ltd and others [2020] EWHC 2941 (Pat) (4 Nov 2020) This was an application by the defendants to strike out part of the  points of claim in an inquiry as to the claimant's damages for patent infringement that had been ordered by the Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Vos, on 17 Dec 2019. The claimant claimed millions of dollars whereas the defendants contended that it was entitled only to a small percentage of that sum. The patent in suit was EP (UK) 1 841 268   which had been declared essential to an ETSI telecommunications standard.  The claimant had given an undertaking to license the use of the patent to implementers of the standards on FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms.  The patent had been the subject of litigation for many years.  When the case came on before the Chancellor the patent had only a few more weeks to run.  The defendants withdrew their request for a FRAND licence an

Author EvaK   Licence CC BY-SA 2.5   Source Wikipedia Harwich Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, Small Claims Track (HH Judge Hacon)  Evans v Trebuchet Design Ltd and another   [2020] EWHC 3037 (IPEC) (20 Oct 2020) This was an application by the defendants to an action for copyright and database right infringement and breach of contract to strike out the claim on the ground that the dispute had been compromised.  Although the case was decided in the small claims track of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, it concerned important matters of principle including the rule in Henderson v Henderson    (1843) 3 Hare 100, 67 ER 313, [1843] UKPC 6, the formation of contracts and costs in the small claims track. The importance of the case is signified by the fact that it was argued before the Enterprise Judge by patent counsel and a senior solicitor and trade mark attorney advocate whose public-spirit and oral and written advocacy were rightly commended by the learned

Author  Subhrajyoti Saha,   Licence CC BY-SA 4.0   Source Wikipedia   Jane Lambert Patents Court (Mr Justice Birss)  Optis Cellular Technology LLC and others v Apple Retail UK Ltd and others [2020] EWHC 2746 (Pat) (16 Oct 2020) This is the first of a series of trials between Optis Cellular Technology LLC and its subsidiaries ("Optis") and Apple Inc and its subsidiaries on whether certain patents held by Optis are valid and essential for compliance with standard 3GPP TS 45.008 concerning GSM. It was common ground that Apple's products comply with the standard.  Consequently, if any of the patents is valid and essential it would follow that that patent would have been infringed. The patent in suit was  EP (UK) 1 230 818 for a Method for improving handovers between mobile communication systems . The action came on for trial before Mr Justice Birss between 5th and 13th Oct 2020. His lordship handed down judgment on 16 Oct 2020 (see Optis Cellular Technology LLC and others v

Author  Brianboru100   Licence  CC BY-SA 3.0   Source  Wikipedia  University of Birmingham Jane Lambert Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (HH Judge Hacon)  Ukoumunne v The University of Birmingham and others [2020] EWHC 2927 (IPEC) (4 Nov 2020) This was an application by the University of Birmingham and three of its academics to strike out claims for breach of confidence and breach of contract that had been launched against them by one of their graduate students. These are the causes of action that survived an earlier strikeout application which I discussed in  Copyright - Ukoumunne v The University of Birmingham   on 20 Feb 2020. The claim had been for breach of confidence, breach of contract, copyright infringement, professional negligence, racial harassment, bullying, sex discrimination and loss of earnings.  The claimant had complained that the University's lecturers had plagiarized her work in a book and articles that had appeared in one of the sixth defendant's publ