OxFirst Webinars Tuesday and Wednesday

In connection with its 12^th IP and Competition Forum in Oxford, U.K., OxFirst will be presenting live webinars tomorrow (Jan. 13) and Wednesday (Jan. 14) featuring eight patent judges—Richard Arnold, Kemal Bengi-Akyürek, Fabian Hoffmann, Richard Meade, Oliver Schoen, Katalin Tözsér, Stefan Wilhelm, and Jiyoung Yi—including FRAND, antisuit injunctions, and interim licenses.  (Readers who follow global FRAND disputes will surely recognize some of these names!) Registration is free, and more information is available here.  

Conference on the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive

Tomorrow and Friday, the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance at the University of Luxembourg will be presenting a conference titled Equality of Arms: Revisiting the IPR Enforcement Directive.  Here is the description:

Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED) marked its 20th anniversary last year. Originally adopted to harmonise national enforcement regimes and strengthen the position of right holders, IPRED has had a significant impact across the EU—particularly in combating piracy and counterfeiting. Nevertheless, enforcement practices still vary widely among Member States. Moreover, the Directive’s right holder-centric focus has raised concerns about a potential lack of balance in the enforcement framework. In response, the European Commission (DG GROW) has launched a study on the implementation of IPRED, which also considers possible legislative amendments.

 

With a particular focus on the concept of “equality of arms”, this working conference examines whether the Directive provides a sufficiently harmonised and balanced enforcement regime—or whether its design requires reform. Bringing together leading figures from academia, legal practice, and the judiciary across multiple jurisdictions, the event will explore key issues addressed in the Commission’s study, including dynamic blocking injunctions and proportionality. It will also discuss important yet underexplored topics, such as the award and calculation of damages and unjustified enforcement of IPRs.

I have a scheduling conflict, or I would be there myself—looks like a terrific event!  For further information, see here.

Upcoming B.U. Technology & Policy Research Initiative IP Day conference

Boston University will be hosting its Ninth Annual Boston University Technology & Policy Research Initiative IP Day conference on Monday, July 14.  I’ll be on the Patent Litigation Discussion Panel at the end of the day.  I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends, included Mike Meurer, Tim Simcoe, and George Chondrakis, and meeting some new ones.  The conference description follows, and registration is available here.

The Ninth Annual Boston University Technology & Policy Research Initiative IP Day conference will highlight new research relating to intellectual property, the economics of innovation, technology commercialization and litigation. IP Day panels focus on emerging research themes, from both a legal and economic perspective, with an emphasis on topics that are relevant to both business and policy. Previous sessions have examined on patent prosecution, third-party litigation finance, standard essential patents, IP and antitrust, pharmaceutical patenting, and University technology transfer.

Upcoming Speaking Engagement at AIPLA Spring Meeting

The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) is holding its Spring Meeting in Minneapolis on May 13-15.  Tuesday, May 13 will feature a concurrent session on remedies in IP cases.  The first session (from 10:15—11:00 a.m.) is titled “Crafting Monetary Remedies in Trademark, Copyright and Unfair Competition Cases (Part 1),” and will feature Professor Mark McKenna (moderating) and (Krista Holt, Charlie Eblen, and Jeffrey M. Gould).  The second session (from 11:15-noon) is titled “Attorney Fees Awards in IP Cases & Crafting Remedies in Patent Cases (Part 2),” and will be moderated by Ashe Puri.  Sue Stuckwisch and I will be presenting.  My focus will be on attorneys’ fee awards in IP cases and extraterritorial damages in patent infringement actions.  Maybe I will see some of you there!

OxFirst Webinar on HMD Global v. VoiceAge

OxFirst will be presenting a free webinar on Wednesday, April 9, at 15:00 BST (9:00 a.m. U.S. Central Time) on the OLG Munich’s decision in HMD Global v. VoiceAge (see my post below from this past Saturday).  The speaker will be Dr. Oliver Schoen, Presiding Judge of the 7th Civil Chamber of the Munich I Regional Court.   Here is a link to register, and here is the description:

 

In this talk, Dr Oliver Schoen will talk about the recent decision in Voice Age vs HMD.

 

Munich continues to be centre stage of FRAND disputes in Europe and internationally. In this webinar, Judge Dr Oliver Schoen will be addressing key issues of standard essential patent disputes in the immediate aftermath of the VoiceAge vs HMD decision. He will look at the key developments the judgment touches upon in the FRAND space and also look at the Amicus Brief of the European Commission.

 

Does the judgment offer new insights on some key FRAND matters, such as what constitutes as unwilling licensee, the future of injunctions and FRAND rate setting in a Munich context?

My Lecture Next Week in Munich on Extraterritorial Damages

This coming weekend I leave for a 10-day trip to Munich.  The primary purpose of the trip is to do some research at the Max Planck Institute in connection with my two pending book projects (Wrongful Patent Assertion:  A Comparative Law and Economics Analysis, under contract with OUP, and Remedies in Intellectual Property Law, under contract with Elgar).  I also am looking forward to catching up with several friends, acquaintances, and colleagues from the world of German IP law.  In addition, I will be giving a lecture at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität next Wednesday, February 5, at 6:30 p.m. titled “Extraterritorial Damages.”  Here is a brief description:

As a general rule, intellectual property (IP) rights are territorial in nature. Subject to some possible exceptions, acts committed abroad do not violate domestic IP laws. In recent years, however, global commerce has brought to the forefront the question of whether the territoriality principle altogether precludes domestic courts from awarding damages for extraterritorial losses.

 

Professor Cotter will explore this issue based on decisions from the US, the UK, Canada, Japan, and Germany and review the evolving law, as well as some yet-to-be-resolved questions, concerning awards of extraterritorial damages for patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret infringement. He will conclude with some thoughts on the related issue of whether courts should award global FRAND royalties in disputes involving SEPs.

More information can be found on the website of CIPLITEC (The Center for Law, Information and Technology), here.  

During the duration of my stay in Germany, I probably will take a break from blogging, unless something extremely important happens that I simply have to write about.  I expect to publish at least one more post this week, however, before leaving.   

Video of Last Week's Webinar, "German FRAND Cases: the EC's Amicus Brief and Other Developments"

Last Thursday I moderated a webinar titled "German FRAND Cases:  the EC's Amicus Brief and Other Developments."  The panelists included Peter Picht and Erik Habich, who along with me edited the recently-published volume "FRAND:  German Case Law and Other Developments (Edward Elgar 2024) (see previous discussion on this blog here and here); Munich Regional Court Judge Hubertus Schacht and Lord Justice Richard Arnold of the Court of Appeal for England and Wales, both of whom contributed essays to the volume; and Professor Jorge Contreras.  Discussion ranged from the use of amicus briefs or analogous practices in the EU, the U.K., and the U.S., to recent developments in FRAND litigation in Germany (where there are now two recent decisions responding to the EC's amicus brief; for previous discussion of the brief on this blog, see here and here) and the U.K. (Panasonic v. Xiaomi).  The video is now up on the University of Minnesota's YouTube site, here.