Category Patents/Designs/Trade Secrets

KSR Decision May Impact EU Patent Process But Not Harmonisation

By Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch
While the direct impact of the recent landmark US Supreme Court decision in Teleflex v. KSR on patent law and practice will be felt only in the United States, the case could indirectly spark changes to European patent processes, experts said. Its focus on the troublesome question of when an invention is "obvious," however, means it probably will not help global efforts to harmonise national patent systems, they said.

US Courts Leave Patent Holders Seeking Stronger International Enforcement

By Steve Seidenberg for Intellectual Property Watch
As more and more commerce crosses national borders, so do more and more items seen as infringing on patents. And patent holders are making a case for stronger international rules on enforcement to protect themselves.

International intellectual property treaties enable an inventor to file one patent application and obtain patent rights in multiple countries, but the treaties do not provide similar mechanisms for multinational enforcement. A patentee can sue in each country where infringement occurs, but this is often prohibitively expensive, they say.

US Supreme Court Reins In Reach Of US Patents

By Sarah Lai Stirland for Intellectual Property Watch
The United States Supreme Court in late April reined in another patent appeals court ruling it deemed overly-expansive. The high court ruled that software companies liable for infringing a patent in the United States cannot at the same time be held liable by American courts for the same activities outside of US borders.

"Foreign law alone, not United States law, currently governs the manufacture and sale of components of patented inventions in foreign countries," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg on behalf of three of her colleagues, Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and David Souter.

The WIPO View On Enforcement, Idris And Development Agenda

Wolfgang Starein is the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) official with primary responsibility for enforcement of intellectual property rights. In a series of recent interviews with Intellectual Property Watch, Starein talked about WIPO’s enforcement agenda for the coming year, a…

USPTO Cautious In Interpretation Of Supreme Court Ruling On Patents

By Sarah Lai Stirland for Intellectual Property Watch
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a preliminary memorandum that instructed its examiners to interpret a landmark Supreme Court ruling conservatively - even as the wider community in the field of US patent law expect the opinion to shake up longstanding rules that determine when an idea is too obvious to be granted a patent. The office also formed an experts' group on the issue.