News

Austria became the first country to take the steps necessary to bring the European Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC) into force, by ratifying the legislation on 7 August 2013. This milestone in the Unitary Patent project is welcomed, and paves the way for other countries to start the ratification process. In order for […]

Last month saw the prototype of the eFiling and Case Management System for the new Unified Patent Court (UPC) go live for testing. This represents an important step closer to the implementation of the UPC. The development team, coordinated by a UK-based taskforce, have chosen an off-the-shelf product on which to base the system. The […]

In Les Laboratoires Servier & another (Servier) v Apotex Inc & others (Apotex) (see here) the Supreme Court ruled that patent infringement does not engage the public interest. It appears that the “illegality defence”, which relies on harmful effects on public well-being, cannot be used to avoid paying injunctive damages relating to potential patent infringement. […]

The Intellectual Property Act 2014 (the 2014 Act) received Royal Assent on 14 May 2014 and will be implemented via a series of commencement orders over the coming months. In this article, originally published in the CIPA Journal in September 2014, Withers & Rogers Patent Attorneys Michael Jaeger and Nick Wallin discuss how one order […]

The 17th Draft of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court was recently published and a marked up version can be found here. The Oral Hearing in respect of this new draft was held on 26 November 2014 at the Academy of European Law in Trier. We highlight below 7 of the most […]

The decision by Mr Justice Birss in the Patents Court in the case of Teva UK Limited and Teva Pharmaceuticals Limited (Teva) v Leo Pharma A/S and Leo Laboratories Limited (Leo) (See here), relates to a combination treatment for psoriasis and provides an interesting commentary on the assessment of obviousness and common general knowledge in […]