» 2023

Exhaustion of patent rights

Patent exhaustion determines the limits of the monopoly that the patent holder is entitled to. If a product that constitutes the material embodiment of the rights under the patent is placed on the market by the right-holder (or with their consent), they lose control over its further fate. Due to the exhaustion of the right, the right-holder cannot take actions aimed at opposing the use of their...

The possibilities of asserting rights by the co-inventor omitted in the patent application

What are the consequences of filing a patent application in which one of the inventors is omitted? We have already dealt with various aspects of this issue in our previous publications. We presented a case study regarding the invalidation of the CRISPR/Cas9 patent before the EPO due to the omission of one of the inventors (see here). We also pointed to the matter of criminal sanctions under...

The Polish translation of the patent description may be used when registering a unitary effect

In one of our previous texts (see here) we have described in detail the procedure specific to the registration of a unitary patent. It should be recalled that European patents granted after June 1 may benefit from unitary effect, with some minor exceptions provided for during the transitional period. An application for unitary patent must, in principle, be filed within one month of the...

New regulations regarding proceedings to secure claims in intellectual property cases

Three years after the establishment of intellectual property courts in Poland, we are witnessing the first significant change in the procedure before them, primarily in the area of the proceedings to secure claims. On March 9, 2023, the Polish parliament adopted an act amending the Act - Code of Civil Procedure and certain other acts. The provisions that are of interest to us entered into force...

The patent invalidation in Poland

The very nature of patents implies their temporal limitation, but the expiry of the protection period may not be the only reason for the termination of exclusive rights arising from the patent. In this article, we present the regulations in Polish law regarding the invalidation of a patent, which can basically take place in two procedures: • as a result of an objection; • in patent...

The launch of the Unified Patent Court

On June 1, 2023, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) launched. This is undoubtedly an important date for the protection of intellectual property in the countries of the European Union participating in the system - and not only. The UPC will have exclusive competence in the participating Member States in respect of actions for infringements and revocation of European...

Is the unitary patent cost-effective?

At the beginning of June 2023, a new patent protection system will launch in the European Union. Persons filing applications with the European Patent Office (EPO) will be able to apply for patents with unitary effect — i.e., providing uniform protection and having the same effect in all participating Member States (there are 17 of them as of this moment). We have already written quite a...

The claim to establish that the production does not infringe the patent

In the most recent entry in the series “Patents Without Secrets” we have written about claims that a patent holder can pursue in the scenarios of patent infringements. This time, we would like to analyze a situation where the roles are in a certain way reversed, and it is the patent holder against whom an action would be brought in aim to demonstrate that the infringement does not occur. ...

Clinical trials and the novelty of the invention

Can clinical trials of a new medicine that are conducted before a patent application is filed result in the loss of novelty by that invention? The caselaw of the EPO shows that it is quite a serious risk that we should take into consideration when preparing the placing of our medicinal product on the European market. In this Report, we would like to take a closer look at one of the most...

Claims available in the scenarios of patent infringement

In this article, we have gathered for you essential information regarding claims that are available in Polish legal system in cases of patent infringement: we are presenting their catalogue with brief descriptions, emphasizing particular possibilities and limitations in terms of their enforcement. At the beginning, it should be mentioned that the relevant provisions of the Act of 30 June 2000 -...

Unified Patent Court: an opt-out

In 2023, we will witness a major transformation in the landscape of industrial property protection in the European Union. The work relating to the launch of the unitary patent system is entering its final stage. As soon as on 1 April 2023 the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is supposed to become operative. The European Patent Office (EPO) indicates at its website 1 June as the date of the official...

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