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To Injunct Or Not To Injunct?
Judge Asked To Grant A 9/10 Day Interim Injunction to Protect Bayer’s Anticoagulant Rivaroxaban Ahead of Main Judgment Pharmaceutical company, Bayer found success in its application seeking an interim injunction, lasting just 9-10 days, to prot...
Partner Promotions
EIP promotes quartet to its international partnership EIP is proud to announce an expansion of our international partnership with the promotion of four from our team: Alex Morgan, Ben Willows, Isabelle Schaller, and Sebastian Fuchs. This strategic en...
AI and Big Data in Agritech
First published by Process Engineering - February 2024 The world’s population stands above 8 billion in 2024 and is still growing. That growth may be slowing down but nonetheless there may be another 2 billion mouths to feed in the next 50 year...
Balancing Expertise: Mellor J's Ruling on Scientific Advisers vs. Expert Evidence
Hill v Touchlight Genetics Ltd & Ors [2024] EWHC 533 (Pat) (08 March 2024) Summary This judgment concerns a novel issue in the Patents Court which arose at the second CMC in this action, regarding whether the Court should appoint a scientific a...
Maternity wear retailers Seraphine Limited and Mamarella GmbH clash over serving proceedings out of the Jurisdiction
Background The Claimant Seraphine Limited (“Seraphine”) a maternity wear retailer had a trading relationship with the Defendant Mamarella GmbH (“Mamarella”), a German online retailer selling maternity wear. This relationship c...
Foreign websites which target UK consumers in the court’s sights
Lifestyle Equities CV & Anor v Amazon UK Services Ltd & Ors [2024] UKSC 8 The Supreme Court has recently handed down judgment in a dispute between the owner of the “Beverley Hills Polo Club” trademark, Lifestyle Equities, and inte...
Technology and Climate change
Key points The transition to green energy may reduce the cost of energy as renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil fuels for most applications. Cheaper energy will support future technology. The environmental impact of technologies such as a...
A Year in Patents - Part 4/4: Back to School—and Back to Exams
Dr Girish Nivarti joined EIP’s London office in October 2022. In this four-part series, he chronicles his first year as a trainee patent attorney. This is the final instalment of the series. When I graduated from University, I thought I had bi...
IPEC Refuses to “Doff its Cap” – Stays Firm on Cost Limits
Equisafety v Battle [2024] EWHC 283 (IPEC) Summary This case was originally a trade mark and passing off dispute between two entities over the use of the word mark “mercury” in relation to high visibility equestrian products being markete...
Denial of Interim Injunction Favours Start-up Amid Concrete Delivery Patent Dispute
Cloud Cycle Ltd v Verifi LLC & Anor [2024] EWHC 233 (IPEC) (07 February 2024) Summary This action concerns a claim by Cloud Cycle Limited (“CCL”) for a declaration of non-infringement of EP (UK) 1 720 689 (the “Patent"), relat...
Deletion of “claim-like” clauses: an EPO Board of Appeal allows them to remain in the granted patent (T 0438/22)
Summary A recent decision T 0438/22 from the EPO’s Boards of Appeal questions the justification for the EPO’s Guidelines for Examination requirement that "claim-like" clauses in the description of the patent specification be unconditional...
EPO Board of Appeal applies the G2/21 test for post-published evidence
The EPO Board of Appeal decision on T 0852/20 has recently been published. It is another decision using the new test under G 2/21, which set out when post-published evidence can be relied upon for inventive step, reframing the older case law, some of w...
Abbott v Dexcom [2024] EWHC 36 (Pat)
Abbott v Dexcom [2024] EWHC 36 (Pat) Background The first UK battle held in the wide-ranging (both in terms of number of patents and geographical area) patent fight between Abbott and Dexcom has ended in a stalemate. Mr Justice Mellor has found two...
Amendments to Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal: attempt to enhance timeliness for cases involving parallel litigation
Summary On the 1 January 2024, amendments made to the Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal came into force [1]. A change to Article 15(1) means that a Board can now summon parties to oral proceedings earlier than before. Article 13(2) has also ...
Admissibility before Boards of Appeal at the EPO: Current state of play
The EPO’s Technical Boards hear appeals from decisions of the Examining and Opposition Divisions with the primary aim of providing a factual and legal review of the first instance decision and not to rehear a case de novo. The revised Rules of ...
Design Piracy or Functional Necessity: Court Rules on Breast Pump Battle in Chiaro Technology Limited v Mayborn (UK) Limited
The Claimant, Chiaro Technology Limited (“Chiaro”), is the owner of a number of registered designs of which several are incorporated into its product the ‘Elvie’, a wearable breast pump. Chiaro alleged that the Defendant, Maybor...
Bioinformatics or Techbio: Semantic musings from a patent perspective
Bioinformatics has become an increasingly discussed topic in our increasingly digital world. Data analysis has always been part of biology but the increasing need and desire to analyse large data sets and deliver improved automation has caused a discre...
End of the line: DABUS reaches its final stop in the UK
On 20 December 2023, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down its judgment in Thaler v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks [2023] UKSC 49 in which it unanimously dismissed Dr Stephen Thaler’s appeal against the Compt...
Therapists’ passing-off claims, libel and harassment allegations unravelled
This article first appeared in WTR Daily, part of World Trademark Review, in (month/year). For further information, please go to www.worldtrademarkreview.com. Ms Crosbie alleged that Ms Ley manipulated online business directories to unlawfully redi...
Report on EPO Patent Knowledge Week
The European Patent Office (EPO) has recently held many online conferences but the real highlight has been the Patent Knowledge week. There were three full days on 28-30 November discussing AI, the EPO’s new tools, data on the first few months of...
Clause Ambiguity and Contract Disputes: Insights from Capita v IBM (2023)
Introduction This case relates to (as stated by the judge) a “rare dispute as to the construction of a contract where one or both parties do not make some appeal to matters of factual matrix to support their construction”. Nevertheless, i...