Patent Litigation

Abstract

Patent litigation refers to patent infringement lawsuits or revocation proceedings. Infringement is the act of making, using, selling, or offering to sell a patented invention without the permission of the patent owner. Revocation proceedings refer to the claim on patent validity before civil courts that may be carried out by firms interested not to be sued for infringing “wrongly” granted patents. Presently, national courts of the member states of the European Patent Convention are competent to pass judgment on the infringement and validity of European patents, with inevitable consequences in terms of duplication and inconsistencies. In December 2012, the European Parliament approved the EU unitary patent package, whose ratification by the individual member states will give rise to a European patent with unitary effects in all jurisdictions involved and to the creation of a Unified Patent Court (UPC) with exclusive jurisdiction to hear infringement and invalidity actions. The result will be a patent protection for all participating member states based on a single application and validation.