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A Practitioner's Guide to European Patent Law 3rd Edition

A Practitioner's Guide to European Patent Law 3rd Edition

Author: Paul England
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 9781509981144

Previous Edition ISBN: 9781509947645
Published In: September 2025
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents

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This new edition offers a comprehensive and practical guide to European patent law.

This book uniquely addresses European patent law using a thematic approach, assessing the national and EPO approaches together rather than in nation-by-nation chapters. Each chapter therefore enables the common ground, and differences, between approaches to be assessed.

The most influential European patent law jurisdictions are covered in the book, including the leading cases from the European Patent Office, England and Wales, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The book also draws insights from further afield, with contributions from other, very active, patent jurisdictions, including Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland.

In addition to featuring completely revised content on the fast-moving subject areas of FRAND and plausibility, and updates in all other areas of patent law, the 3rd edition includes for the first time fully integrated coverage of every substantive decision of the Unified Patent Court. A must-read for anyone working in the field of European patent law.

1. Introduction

I. Towards a ius commune of Patent Law

II. The Purpose of this Book

1. The Skilled Person and their Common General Knowledge

I. The Skilled Person or Team

II. Common General Knowledge

2. Scope of Protection of Patent Claims

I. Statutory Basis

II. Principles of Construction

III. General Principles of National Law on the Doctrine of Equivalents

IV. The Role of a 'Formstein Defence'

V. The Role of the Prosecution File

VI. Particular Terms and Forms of Claim

VII. Numerical Ranges

VIII. Case Comparison – The Pemetrexed Decisions

3. Direct Infringement

I. Statutory Basis

II. Liability

III. Territoriality

IV. Product Claims (Article 25(a) CPC 1989)

V. Process Claims (Article 25(b) CPC 1989)

VI. Products Made by an Infringing Process (Article 25(c) CPC 1989)

VII. Processes for Obtaining New Products

VIII. Second Medical Use Claim Infringement

IX. Infringement of DNA Sequences

X. Unjustified Threats

4. Indirect Infringement

I. Statutory Basis

II. Means Relating to an Essential Element of the Invention

III. Means Suitable for Putting the Invention into Effect

IV. Knowledge

V. Staple Commercial Products

VI. Double-territoriality

VII. Indirect Infringement of Swiss Form Claims

VIII. Indirect Infringement of EPC 2000 Claims

IX. Other Forms of Contributory Infringement

5. General Defences

I. The Diverse Sources of Defence to Infringement

II. The Experimental Use Exemption

III. The Bolar Exemption

IV. Other Statutory Defences

V. Exhaustion

VI. De minimis

VII. Public Interest Compulsion and Crown Use

VIII. Invalidity and Non-Infringement of Claims Asserted

IX. Issue Estoppel

X. FRAND Licence Objection

XI. Prior Use (Article 37 CPC 1989)

6. Declarations

I. General Jurisdictional Basis

II. Declarations of Non-Infringement

III. Declarations that a Patent is Standard Essential

IV. Declarations Concerning Validity

7. FRAND

I. Standards, SEPs and FRAND

II. Guidance at the European Level

III. General Principles of National Law

IV. Determining the FRAND Rate

V. Anti-Suit Injunctions (ASIs) and Anti-Anti-Suit Injunctions (AASIs)

8. Remedies

I. Statutory Basis

II. Preliminary Injunctions

III. Damages for Unjustified Injunction

IV. Protective Letters

V. Quia Timet Injunction

VI. Final Injunction

VII. Springboard Relief

VIII. Award of Damages

IX. Account of Profits

X. Recall, Removing from the Channels of Commerce and Destruction

XI. Publication of Judgment

XII. Effect of Tested Validity

XIII. Substantive Treatment of Costs

9. Patentability and Industrial Application

I. Statutory Basis

II. Industrial Application

III. Excluded Subject-matter

IV. Exceptions to Patentability

V. Methods of Treatment and Diagnostics – Article 53(c) EPC

10. Novelty

I. Statutory Basis

II. General Principles of EPO and National Case Law

III. Treatment of Disclosure and Enablement

IV. Interpreting Patent Claims and the Prior Art for Novelty Purposes

V. Made Available to the Public

VI. Novelty Over General Disclosures in the Art

VII. Priority

VIII. Product by Process Claims

IX. Second and Subsequent Medical Uses

X. Other Forms of Purpose-limited Claims

XI. Claim Amendment

11. Inventive Step

I. Statutory Basis

II. Date

III. Determination of Fact or Law?

IV. Technical or Commercial Question?

V. The Role of Common General Knowledge

VI. Structured Approaches to Inventive Step

VII. Motivation Based Approaches

VIII. Criticism of Problem-and-Solution

IX. Criticism of Motivation-based Tests

X. An Alternative Basis for Assessing Inventive Step

XI. Mixed Technical and Non-technical Features

XII. Combinations of Prior Art Features

XIII. Other Factors

XIV. Case Comparison (Tadalafil)

12. Sufficiency

I. Statutory Basis

II. General Approaches of EPO and National Law

III. Principle of General Application

IV. Technical Contribution and Invention Treated Separately

V. Forms of Claim

VI. Inventive Improvements/Infringements

VII. Promised Quality not Enabled and Errors

VIII. Deposits of Biological Material

IX. Plausibility in the Context of Insufficiency

X. Lack of Clarity

13. Plausibility

I. Is There a Statutory Basis?

II. Origins of Plausibility in the EPO

III. Inventive Step

IV. Insufficiency

V. Industrial Applicability

VI. The Novelty Context

VII. Post-dated Evidence and ab-initio Plausibility

VIII. The Plausibility Threshold

IX. Further Questions

14. Supplementary Protection Certificates

I. Statutory Basis

II. Certificates for Plant Protection Products

III. Conditions for Grant

IV. Protected by a Basic Patent in Force

V. Marketing Authorisations in the SPC Context

VI. Extent of Protection (Article 4 SPC Regulation)

VII. Same Rights as Conferred by the Patent (Article 5 SPC Regulation)

VIII. Term

IX. Medicinal Products for Paediatric Use

X. The SPC Manufacturing Waiver

15. Patent Ownership, Dealings and Employee Inventors

I. Introduction

II. Ownership

III. Approaches to Inventor Compensation

IV. Rights of Co-owners

V. Patent Dealings

VI. Effect of Transfer of Ownership on Licensee

VII. Compulsory Licences

VIII. Public Interest Compulsion

IX. Unitary Patents as 'Objects of Property'

16. Cross-border Actions in Europe

I. Relation between National and EPO Proceedings

II. The Brussels Regulation

III. Cross-Border Validity Actions

IV. Cross-border Infringement Actions

V. Cross-border Declarations of Non-infringement

17. Evidence

I. General Principles

II. Burden of Proof

III. General Obligations to Produce Evidence

IV. Specific Means for Obtaining Evidence

V. Role of Witness of Fact Evidence

VI. Opinion Evidence

VII. Experiments

VIII. Letters Rogatory (Letters of Request) and US 1782

IX. Border Seizures

X. Confidentiality

XI. Privilege

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