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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...