The Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) will be a Court common to 25 Member States of the European Union (“EU”) (currently including the UK) and thus be part of their judicial system. The Court will have exclusive jurisdiction over traditional European patents (a bundle …›
Summary The European Union is finally making significant progress in implementing the first pan-EU trade secrets protection rules. The EU’s largest country, Germany, has published its long-awaited draft bill setting out how it proposes to implement trade secrets protection. The EU directive on trade secrets protection …›
After the biggest challenge yet to the Patent and Trademark Office’s popular inter partes review proceedings, the name of the game is largely “same old” for today’s Supreme Court decision in Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, No. 16-712. The …›
This year’s notable U.S. Supreme Court patent decisions include opinions that: make it more difficult to file patent cases outside a domestic defendant's state of incorporation; prevent defendants from asserting laches as a defense within the six-year statute of limitations period; hold that supplying …›
The European Union’s annual Work Programme states that, in 2018, the European Commission will prioritize the following technology issues: - Establishing a regulatory framework for online communications; - Reforming copyrights in the digital single market (DSM); …›
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued the Filmspeler judgement on April 26, 2017, favorable to the media industry, on the liability of sellers of set-top boxes with pre-installed add-ons enabling illegal access to motion pictures, Pay-TV, and SvoD platforms (“loaded Kodi boxes”). …›
According to Tim Harris, a partner in Morrison & Foerster’s Emerging Companies + Venture Capital Group, many startups open themselves up to intellectual property disputes by failing to: - Secure title to the IP upon which their startups are based; …›
On February 22, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court in Life Technologies Corp. v. Promega Corp. held that if a party provides from the United States just one component of a foreign-manufactured, multicomponent, patent-infringing invention, that party cannot be liable under 35 U.S.C. §271(f)(1). Life Technologies …›
Intellectual property adds value to a startup by giving it the ability to: - Exclude others from providing a particular product or service; - Differentiate its product from legacy solutions and competition; …›
“A potential patent war looms over the blockchain,” according to a January 2017 piece in The Economist. That fight over patent rights to aspects of blockchain technology is a sign of the blockchain’s potential, according to Morrison & Foerster intellectual property partner Colette Reiner …›