MoFo Tech

July 13, 2021 - Intellectual Property, European Union
Green Light for UPC
By: Wolfgang Schönig and Jacqueline Madeleine Feigl
UPC – And it got up again Having been sent down for the count by constitutional complaints in Germany, the road finally seems paved for the Unified Patent Court. On July 9, 2021, the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) announced that it had dismissed
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June 22, 2021 - Intellectual Property, European Union
Recent Developments Regarding Patent Injunctions in Germany
By: Wolfgang Schönig and Robert Grohmann
The German patent system has repeatedly proven to provide reliable and effective means to enforce patent rights against infringers. There are three key reasons why the German patent system is so attractive for patentees when seeking to enforce their rights in Europe: Injunction gap:
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April 21, 2021 - Artificial Intelligence + Robotics, European Union
Draft EU Regulation for Artificial Intelligence Proposes Fines of up to 6% of Total Annual Turnover
By: Christiane Stuetzle and Patricia C. Ernst
After the presentation of a general “European Approach to Artificial Intelligence” by the EU Commission in March 2021, a detailed draft regulation aimed at safeguarding fundamental EU rights and user safety was published today (“Draft Regulation”). The Draft Regulation’s main provisions are the following:
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December 15, 2020 - Intellectual Property, European Union
Huawei v. ZTE revisited – German automotive patent wars to reshape SEP litigation in Europe
By: Wolfgang Schönig, Robert Grohmann and Jacqueline Madeleine Feigl
I. Introduction On November 26, the Dusseldorf Regional Court handed down a long awaited decision in the so-called automotive patent wars (case ID 4c O 17/19). The court referred heatedly debated questions in connection with the enforcement of standard essential patents (“SEPs”) to the
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July 29, 2020 - European Union
Determining Liability For Illegal Uploads to Online Platforms: An ECJ Opinion Decides in Favour of Platform Operators
By: Alistair Maughan and Mercedes Samavi
Online platform operators have a rare cause to be cautiously optimistic at news from the European court. In a recently-published European Court of Justice (ECJ) opinion, Advocate General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe stated that, under the current EU legal regime, operators should not be directly
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July 16, 2020 - Privacy + Data Security, European Union
The Ruling on SCCs and Privacy Shield May Not Be As Straightforward As It Seems
By: Miriam H. Wugmeister and Alex van der Wolk
Today, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“Court”) issued its judgement in the Schrems II ‑case. The case relates to the validity of certain transfer mechanisms to legitimize international sharing of personal information from the EU to outside the EU. In short, the
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June 05, 2020 - Regulatory, European Union
Digital Compliance in Europe: Regulatory Alignment Post-Brexit
By: Alistair Maughan and Mercedes Samavi
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the process of implementing Brexit continues. One of the key Brexit issues for the tech sector is the extent to which the UK will either align or diverge its digital regulations with the EU. Both the UK and EU have
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May 29, 2020 - Privacy + Data Security, European Union
EU Data Protection Laws Are Not Fit For Purpose: They Undermine the Very Autonomy of the Individuals They Set Out to Protect
By: Lokke Moerel
The European Union is supposed to have the strongest data protection laws in the world. So why do privacy violations continue to make the headlines? I believe that the lack of material privacy compliance is not due to lack of enforcement, but is due
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May 21, 2020 - Intellectual Property, European Union
Germany Adopts Administrative Trademark Cancellation Actions
By: Robert Grohmann
On May 1, 2020 the last part of the German Trademark Law Modernization Act ( Markenrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz – “MaMoG”), which contains practical relevant amendments to the procedural rules of the German trademark system, took effect. In particular, an administrative procedure for the revocation and the
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March 24, 2020 - European Union
Hard Knocks Keep Coming for Europe’s Unified Patent Court
By: Wolfgang Schönig and Robert Grohmann
With brexited UK announcing that it will not join Europe’s long-awaited Unified Patent Court (UPC), the establishment of an efficient pan-European patent litigation system faces ever‑mounting challenges. Last Friday, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared that the German Act of Approval of the UPC
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