New complex technological sectors like software and biotechnology pose unprecedented challenges for patent law. In Europe, this situation has engendered patent law reforms which, after several years of struggling, seem to have finally concretized in the Agreement on the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court signed by twenty-five EU Member States in February 2013 (the so-called EU Patent Package). In this ground-breaking book derived from the work of the highly respected and penetrating PatLim project in Finland nineteen prominent experts explore issues arising in the context of the emerging European patent system. The book analyses how substantive and procedural patent law rules in highly complex technologies interact within each other's frameworks and within the overall IP framework, as well as within the frameworks of other intellectual property rights and other fields of law, such as competition law.-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note
1. European patent law: the case for reform 2. Patent reforms at both sides of the Atlantic: an analysis of the patent package and de America invents act through the lens of 'dynamic patent governance' 3. The unified patent court (UPC) in action: how will the design of the UPC affect patent law? 4. Legal certainty and software patents: a European perspective 5. The unified patent court and the inventive Step 6. Secret prior art: the many faces of article 54(3) EPC 7. Patent specification: articles 83 and 84 appeal before the boards of appeal of EPO concerning computer programs 8. Enforcement: legal implications of the European and unitary patent systems for non-practicing entity patent enforcement in Europe 9. The doctrine of equivalents and the interpretation of the extent of protection conferred by a patent 10. The requirements for preliminary injunctions in the unified patent court 11. Adding fuel to fire: a complex case of unifying patent limitations and exceptions through the EU patent package 12. The relationship between copyright and patent protection in European Union law 13. Competition policies for software innovations in and beyond markets: an investigation into the complementary of competition law and patents in the European Union 14. Misuse of patent application procedures: a case for condemning non-misleading strategies?