Document Security Systems v European Central Bank

Tiny litte Rochester, New York, based Document Security Systems has filed a claim against the mighty European Central Bank - issuer of the Euro bank notes - alleging infringement of its European Patent 0455750B1. The bank has counter-claimed in the Luxembourg and UK courts alleging that the patent is invalid.

Interestingly the claim for patent infringement has been filed in the European Court of Justice's Court of First Instance as a claim against a European Institution. This is probably the first time that a patent infringement claim has been filed there.

DSS's press release on the matter is at http://www.documentsecurity.com/company/company_news_detail.aspx?id=42

EU Council request EU Commission to report on IP

Meeting in Brussels in December the heads of government of the European Union have asked the EU Commission (basically the EU's civil service) to present a report on IP matters governing, in particular, the quality of the IP system and patents. Hopefully the report will also address such matters as the speed of grant - currently taking between five and six years in some cases. This fits in well with the German government's attempts to accelerate discussions on the European Patent Litigation Agreement.

Press Release of EU Commission

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=DOC/06/3&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Partial Revocation of German Stem Cell Patent

Germany's Patent Court has partially revoked a patent by German researcher Oliver Brüstle on the creation of nerve cells from embryonic stem cells. Greenpeace had opposed the patent stating that anything created from human tissue cannot be the subject of a patent in Germany. The Court agreed - to the detriment of reasearch industry.

Medical companies can only recover their expenditure on research and development through effective patent protection. This leads to a greater variety of pharmaceuticals being available and effective cures for illnesses and diseases being developed. The argument that patent protection leads automatically to higher prices is flawed: in many cases alternative treatments were previously unknown.

Brüstle is going to appeal the decision. Rightly so. Fortunately other countries allow patent protection - at the end of the day it will be German industry that suffers

German EU Presidency to Push for European Patent Litigation Agreement

The German government has announced that one of its priorities for the forthcoming EU presidency is to push for the European Patent Litigation Agreement - great. After the demise of the proposed EU patent, this will hopefully be succesful in getting a simple forum for litigating European Patents - instead of the current unwieldly need to go through multiple fora in different countries. Currently most patent holders just file litigation in one country and use it as an indicator for the results in other countries. Generally most infringers will accept the result in one country and not sell/produce infringing products in other EU countries. Occassionally, however, different courts in different countries issue different results - the EPILADY case being one such case.

Link to press release of German government:

http://www.bmj.de/enid/099bbd52d587204371368a58a5272f05,da76fc706d635f6964092d0933383135093a0979656172092d0932303036093a096d6f6e7468092d093132093a095f7472636964092d0933383135/Pressemitteilungen_und_Reden/Pressemitteilungen_58.html