Following the adoption of the two Regulations on the EU patent and on related translation arrangements on 17th December 2012 and the signing of the Unified Patent Court Agreement on 19th February 2013, factual and other legal grounds must now be prepared in order to enable the Unified Patent Court to commence work after the Agreement comes into effect. This includes the drafting of Rules of Procedure. The following contribution concerns the current draft of the Rules of Procedure for the Unified Patent Court, which was developed ahead of the broad consultation to be undertaken three months after the signing of the Unified Patent Court Agreement.

Spoliation refers to the destruction or material alteration of evidence, or a party’s failure to preserve evidence related to a reasonably foreseeable litigation. Recent high-profile patent cases have been affected by alleged spoliation, including Hynix v. Rambus, Micron v. Rambus, and Samsung v. Apple. Spoliation sanctions can be severe enough to change a litigation’s outcome. Therefore, it is crucial that businesses engaged in patenting and licensing technologies understand spoliation law and take steps to preserve documents that may relate to patent litigation. This article reviews the standards for foreseeability relating to patent litigation, how different circuits determine whether to impose spoliation sanctions, and recent examples of spoliation sanctions in patent litigation.

An uprising issue that became very relevant in the last decades is the role of patents that are essential to a technology standard. Whereas patents are intended to allow its owner to exclude others from using the protected invention, the main objective of standards is to encourage the spread and wide implementation of the standardized technology. Patents that would necessarily be infringed by any implementation or adoption of a standard are called Standard Essential Patents (SEPs). However, the indispensable character of SEPs is worrisome for antitrust authorities, since it may leverage market power and lead to exclusive effects.

The appointment of the Expert Panel raises practical issues. These issues are related to its selection, cost and the briefing materials it will consider.

There are different issues to take into account when deciding the correct moment to sue a possible infringer. One of these elements is the status of the patent or patent application which is to be used.

This article is an overview of issues and risks in cross-border licensing transactions. Typical intellectual property licensing agreements can be said to include: (1) patent and know-how licensing agreements for medicine, machinery, electronics and so on; (2) copyright licensing agreements for IT and software; and (3) trademark licensing agreements or publicity license rights agreements. The purpose of this article is to introduce risks which might cause disputes in cross-border licensing and to study how to avoid them in advance.

This paper aims to introduce measures to prevent disclosure of trade secrets during the course of lawsuit procedures.

Sports are currently one of the best ways to connect people worldwide. The significance of sports in today’s society is a clear reflection of the influence and passion that arises in each supporter.

Only through a deep look at IP deals can one really begin to uncover the true value of IP. This article summarizes royalty rate and structure trends for IP deals in the Pharmaceuticals, Software, Consumer Products and Telecommunications industries. The LESI IP Valuation Committee in cooperation with ktMINE, an IP information services firm providing global IP intelligence, presented a workshop covering some of the information presented here.

Inducement, a form of indirect patent infringement, provides for liability where one party causes infringement by another. Under recent law, inducement may apply to situations where one party performs certain steps of a patented method and causes another party to perform the other steps. Stated otherwise, induced infringement allows for liability when no single party performs all steps of a patented method.