Germany May Consider Introducing More Flexibility into the Law on Patent Injunctions

I usually don't post more than twice in a single day, but here is another development on the law of injunctions that potentially could be quite important.  At the recent conference in Erlangen ("Enforcing Patents Smoothly: From Automatic Injunctions to Proportionate Remedies") we were informed that one of the German ministries would be holding a hearing in May to discuss the possibility of introducing greater flexibility into the law relating to patent injunctions.  This morning I noticed that Florian Mueller had published a post about the conference on FOSS Patents, in which he states that he has

obtained official confirmation from the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection of Germany that an "expert talk" will take place on May 20, 2019, for the stated purpose of preparing a legislative initiative in the area of intellectual property policy. Industry groups, academics and judges will discuss one of the potential elements of said initiative: a potential reform of the legal framework governing patent injunctions, particularly in connection with SEPs and, more generally, complex products.

Obviously I don't want to jump the gun, but this could prove to be a turning point, depending on how it turns out.  

Anyway, and aside from how the expert talk plays out, if you're interested in hearing more about the Erlangen conference, read Florian's post, as well a forthcoming post (maybe this later this week?) that I understand will be appearing on IPKat.  Some of the Erlangen speakers, including me, also are planning to publish papers based on our presentations in a forthcoming issue of Zeitschrift für Geistiges Eigentum/Intellectual Property Journal, though that will still be many months away.  And finally, for those of you in Europe, there will be another conference on injunctions (at which I will again be speaking) at Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich, which I will blog more about tomorrow.