The New Swiss Patent Ligitation System

Switzerland is about to implement a completely new patent litigation system, following the establishment of a new specialized federal patent trial court and the replacement of twenty-six cantonal codes of civil procedure with a single uniform federal code of civil procedure. This article provides an overview of the general structure and the most important features of the new patent litigation system that may be of interest to international patent litigants and litigators.

Patentability and Scope of Protection for DNA Sequence

Since the mapping of the human genome and the technical innovations in the field of biotechnology, patent law has gone through great controversies. Protection is required for an investor to make an investment but how broad should the given protection be? Whether the invention is a mi- cro-organism capable of dissolving crude oil, or the gene of a soya plant, the genetic engineering required for their production entails vast amounts of capi- tal. The policy in that respect is tailored by legislative acts and judicial decisions, ensuring a fair balance be- tween the interests of patent right holders and third parties. However, the policy differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, thus creating inconsistencies with re- gards to the given protection to the same invention, and as a result this could deter innovation and pro- mote stagnation. The most active actors shaping the patent policy on an international level are the patent offices of the United States of America, Japan and the European Patent Organization. These three patent offices have set up a cooperation programme in order to promote and improve efficiency with regards to their patent policies on a global scale. However, recent judicial de- velopments have shown that the policy in respect to the field of biotechnology differs between the patent regimes of the United States of America and the two- layer system of the European Patent Organisation/ the European Union.

Swiss Patent Jurisprudence 2012

The new Swiss Federal Patent Court, with nationwide first-instance jurisdiction over all civil patent matters, has been operating since 1 January 2012. This article reviews and contextualizes the most important patent cases the Swiss Federal Patent Court and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. It concludes that the revamped Swiss patent litigation system has the potential of turning Switzerland into a competitive venue for the adjudication of patent matters in Europe.

Open Innovation: Legal Hurdles in the Creation of Contractual Arrangements Governing Idea Competitions?

The phenomenon of Open Innovation has been gaining prominence over the last decade. Idea competitions have been used in a variety of industrial sectors. Nevertheless, the legal issues raised by this topic have not been broadly addressed, yet. These arise from the adverse interests of the actors. The company which organizes an idea competition would usually like to have the opportunity to comprehensively use the solutions, ideas or products submitted by the competition entrants. For the company it is important to obtain all intellectual property rights in the idea, in the product created as a result and, thus, in the rights to be exploited in the future, in particular, patents, utility models, trademarks, copyrights and registered designs as well as other industrial property rights. The participant would like to participate to the greatest extent possible in the success of the submitted solution. This affects, firstly, the question of fair remuneration or further participation in any profits earned as well as, secondly, any personal rights such as being named as inventor or author. The article aims to show the contractual difficulties which have to be addressed tailoring theterms of an idea competition under German law.

‘Abuse of Rights’ in Belgian and French Patent Law – A Case Law Analysis

This paper examines what types of actions undertaken by patent holders have been considered as abusive in the framework of French and Belgian patent litigation. Particular attention is given to the principle of the prohibition of “abuse of rights” (AoR). In the jurisdictions under scrutiny, the principle of AoR is essentially a jurisprudential construction in cases where judges faced a particular set of circumstances for which no codified rules were available. To investigate how judges deal with the prohibition of AoR in patent litigation and taking into account the jurisprudential nature of the principle, an in-depth and comparative case law analysis has been conducted. Although the number of cases in which patent holders have been sanctioned for such abuses is not overabundant, they do provide sufficient leads on what is understood by Belgian and French courts to constitute an abuse of patent rights. From this comparative analysis, useful lessons can be learned for the interpretation of the ambiguous notion of ‘abuse’ from a broader perspective.