» Patents Without Secrets

The effect of the patent revocation versus the effect of the patent expiration

Industrial property law knows two fundamental institutions that can result in the termination of patent rights: revocation and expiration. Both of these institutions, in Poland regulated in detail by the Act of 30 June 2000 - Industrial Property Law (hereinafter: IPL), have in common that they cause the intangible property protected by the patent to enter the public domain and become available...

Data exclusivity

Despite the title of our series (“Patents without secrets”), this entry is dedicated to market monopoly, which concerns a specific group of products, and its source is pharmaceutical law rather than industrial property law. Data exclusivity is a special institution that provides additional protection to manufacturers of medicinal products. It is justified, as indicated by Prof. Du Vall...

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 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. ...

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 -...

Patent pools

Patent pools, in brief, constitute an agreement between two or more patent holders who share their patents between themselves or with third parties. In this article we would like to introduce you to this issue, paying attention in particular to purposes for which patent pools are set up and to challenges related to their assessment from the point of view of anti-competition law. ...

Sequences of Genes as Inventions

In this article, we would like to discuss one of the issues that involves the patent law regulations in the area of biotechnology. Is it possible to grant a patent for a sequence of a gene? In other words, would it be possible to treat genes as inventions and if yes, then what conditions should be fulfilled for such a classification? The debate on this subject is full of controversies. At...

Unified Patent Court: Representation of Parties to Proceedings Before the Unified Patent Court

The launch of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is quickly approaching. With 24 EU Member States within its jurisdiction, it will be exclusively competent in matters relating to validity and infringements of the European patents with unitary effects, European patents and supplementary protection certificates granted for inventions protected by such patents. We have previously indicated in our...

Licensing agreements and other technology transfer agreements and the competition law

As we can read in “Patent Law” by Professor Du Vall, the economic and social rationales behind the IP law and the competition law are to a considerable degree convergent: “they are supposed to contribute to ensuring benefits for consumers and the effective allocation of the means of production”. The relation between these two fields of law remains, however, rather complicated: the...

Know-how: the protection of trade secrets

Know-how, technological knowledge developed by an enterprise in a particular field, is not protected under the industrial property law, and yet it might play a considerable role when it comes to keeping inventions safe from unauthorized use by third parties. In this article we will present you the definition of know-how, as well as a catalogue of claims that an entitled person can raise in case...

The Unified Patent Court: Protective Letter

The preparations for the launch of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) are currently in progress. An international court that would be exclusively competent in matters of validity and infringements of unitary patents as well as European patents granted by the EPO, will start functioning in late 2022 or early 2023. The emergence of the UPC will dramatically change the landscape of industrial property...

Doctrine of Equivalents

In our previous article in the cycle “Patents Without Secrets” we discussed the available methods applied in interpretation of patent claims, pointing out to some characteristic discrepancies occurring between the manner of construing claims in the Polish legal system (the Act of 30 June 2020 - the Industrial Property Law (IPL)) and on the grounds of the Convention on the Grant of European...

Interpretation of Patent Claims

The extent of the protection conferred by a patent is determined by claims included in the patent description. This rule finds expression in Article 63 Section 2 of the Polish Act of 30 June 2000 — the Industrial Property Law (IPL); the provision in question specifies that the description and drawings can be used for the interpretation of claims. Despite seemingly unambiguous wording, this...

The Debate on the Waiver of Patents for Vaccines Against SARS-CoV-2

The subject that we have already written about in our previous Legal Reports — the suspension of patent protection for vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus (see: Patent rights: an obstacle for development of a vaccine against COVID-19? (WTS Legal Report No. 15/2020) and What is permitted under the TRIPS Agreement when it comes to the scarcity of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines? (WTS Legal Report No....

New medical uses: the basic information

The patentability requirements have already been extensively covered in our publications: let us remind you that according to Article 24 of the Act of 30 June 2000 - Industrial Property Law (hereinafter: IPL), patents are granted for inventions that satisfy the criteria of novelty, inventive step, and industrial application. As for novelty, more detailed rules for its assessment are provided...

Patent licensing

Under Article 66 Section 2 of the Act of 30 June 2000 - Industrial Property Law (hereinafter as IPL), a patent holder can give to another person a contractual authorization (a license) to use their invention (a licensing agreement). In this article in the series "Patents Without Secrets" we would like to present you the key information regarding licensing agreements in the Polish patent law:...

The extended scope of patent rights: Articles 64 and 65 of the IPL

The most recent posts in our cycle "Patents Without Secrets" concerned the limitations to patent rights; this time we would like to present you the other side of the coin: namely, situations wherein the legislator allows for the extension of the scope of protection. In other terms, we would like discuss in which cases we will be dealing with the indirect patent protection. The indirectness of...

Limitations to patent rights: compulsory licenses in the Polish legal system

Both Polish and international law provide certain institutions that — even though not extensively used in practice — allow to interfere with a patent holder's exclusive right to use an invention. We would like to dedicate this entry in our cycle Patents Without Secrets to offer you an overview of the Polish regulation in the area of compulsory licenses. This issue gains particular...

Proceedings before the UPSTO: Request for Continued Examination (RCE)

We present you the third entry in our cycle "Patents without Secrets” that is dedicated to regulations related to patent procedure in the American jurisdiction. Many of our Clients express their interest in seeking patent protection in the USA, therefore we would like to provide you with all the essential information regarding proceedings before the UPSTO. Having discussed already such topics...

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