New Edition of the Véron Treatise on Saisies-Contrefaçon

I recently was pleased to receive a complementary copy of the trilingual (French, English, and German) version of the third edition of Véron et Associés' treatise Saisie-Contrefaçon.  (For readers who are not familiar with it, the saisie-contrefaçon is a pretrial order used in France to obtain evidence of infringement.  I briefly discuss the procedure in my book at p.230).  Dr. Klaus Grabinski (Judge of the German Federal Supreme Court) and Sir Robin Jacob (formerly Lord Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeals of England and Wales) contribute forewords.  The book also includes a chapter on the saisie-description in Belgium, and annexes discussing among other things analogous procedures before the Unified Patent Court and national laws in other European countries.  Should be a very useful resource for European practitioners and scholars. 

Monday Miscellany: Saisies-Contrefaçon, Border Measures, Design Crime, and Noninfringing Alternatives

1.  Pierre Langlais and Deborah Dayan have published a paper titled Saisie-Contrefaçon:  points de vigilance -- Panorama de Jurisprudence (juin 2013 - septembre 2014) in the November 2014 issue of Propriété Industrielle at pages 8-13.  The abstract reads as follows (my translation from the French):

The saisie-contrefaçon is a fundamental method of proof in regard to infringement.  Because of its extraordinary character, the saisie-contrefaçon procedure is subject to strict rules, and decisions calling saisies into question are myriad.  2013 and 2014 have been richer still in teachings in this regard.  The retrospective table below has for its objective the presentation of a panorama of cases in order to call to the attention of litigants the different risks tied to the saisie-contrefaçon. 

2.  In the October issue of GRUR (pp. 921-24), Thomas Kühnen published  the second installement of his Die Haftung wegen unberechtigter oder zu Unrecht unterbliebener Grenzbeschlagnahme nach der VO (EU) Nr. 608/2013 ("Liability for unauthorized or unenforced border measures under Regulation (EU) No. 608/2013).  For my post on Part 1, see here.  Here is the abstract:

Border measures are directed against goods that are suspected of infringing an intellectual property right.  Subsequently it may turn out that there actually was no infringement, in which case the commercial consequences for the victim of the unauthorized seizure can be grave.  On the other hand, the IP owner also can suffer injury to its property, if the Customs Authorities do not take objectively reasonable measures and thus allow, to the detriment of the IP owner, competition from infringing products.  This essay attempts the first systematic analysis of the liability problem.  In connection with Part 1 (GRUR 2014, 811), which addresses the liability of Customs Authorities, Part 2 follows up with the liability of movants and of persons entitled to dispose of the property. 

3.      David Musker has published Design crime: back to the future or forwards to the past?, in 9 Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice No. 12, pp. 976-84 (2014).  Here is a link to the paper, and here is the abstract:

The Intellectual Property Act 2014 has controversially created new criminal offences, and magistrates will therefore find themselves dealing with design infringements.  This is not, however, the first time:  the magistrates' courts also had jurisdiction over registered design piracy between 1842 and 1883, and many of the concerns recently raised during passage of the Intellectual Property Act were played out before them.  This article examines some of the cases as reported through the eyes of the Victorian press.

Readers may recall that Professor Sarah Burstein published a guest post here on the new UK design crime law. 

4.  Finally, over at Sufficient Description Norman Siebrasse recently published two very good posts (here and here) relating to the relevance to patent damages of noninfringing alternatives, in the context of a critique of the recent Canadian case of Eli Lilly v. Apotex.  (I blogged about the case recently here.)  He also has a (more favorable) post on the Canadian court's handling of the compound interest issue here.

Monday Miscellany: Protective Letters, Developments in France, the E.U., and South Korea, and More

1. I mention in my book (p.244 n.104) that in Germany and Switzerland potential infringement defendants can "file, ex parte, a 'protective writ' (Schutzschrift) [also known in English as a "protective letter"] with a court in anticipation of a possible ex parte motion for a preliminary injunction on the part of a patentee. The writ explains why, in the defendant’s opinion, a potentially accused product does not infringe. The existence of the writ is not disclosed to the patentee unless and until the patentee moves for a preliminary injunction."   Dr.  Andreas Wehlau has written an entire book on the subject, Die Schutzschrift (Carl Heymanns Verlag 2011).  Dr. Wehlau and Dr. Björn Kalbfus also discuss protective letters, in English, here, noting among other things that they are also used in the Netherlands and Belgium.  Apparently they're trying the procedure out in France too, according to this article by Dominique Ménard.

Over the past few months, some of the patent law blogs have been discussing the question of whether the protective letter procedure is now available in Spain.   PatLit published a post a couple of weeks ago, "Barcelona court allows filing of 'protective leter' by alleged infringer," that discusses what may be the first use of the procedure in Spain.  (According to this post, the court in Barcelona requires that a patent owner who has sent the alleged infringer a warning letter be notified of the protective letter.)  However, on October 17 the Kluwer Patent Blog published a post by Miguel Montañá titled "Protective Writs in Spain?" that discusses what sounds like the same case (and one other later case), and expresses some doubt that either case should be read as firmly embracing the procedure.  Yet another write-up, by Manuel Lobato of Bird & Bird, seems to side with the position expressed on PatLit (and notes that "protective letters are also mentioned in the draft Rules of Procedure for the [Unified] Patent Court"--Rule 207, to be precise--so maybe we'll be seeing more of them in other European countries).  I guess we'll see how future courts resolve the issue.

2.  The December 2013 issue of the French IP journal Propriété Industrielle discusses (both in the introductory comments by Professor Christian LeStanc and in a longer article by Xavier Buffet Delmas d'Autane and Jules Fabre) a recent proposed law to combat the infringement of intellectual property  rights.  The proposal is available, in French, here.  Of particular interest to me is the proposal to amend the damages provisions of the Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle.  (The amendments read alike for patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other IP rights).  For patents, the current text of the law, as amended in 2007, reads:

Pour fixer les dommages et intérêts, la juridiction prend en considération les conséquences économiques négatives, dont le manque à gagner, subies par la partie lésée, les bénéfices réalisés par le contrefacteur et le préjudice moral causé au titulaire des droits du fait de l'atteinte.

Toutefois, la juridiction peut, à titre d'alternative et sur demande de la partie lésée, allouer à titre de dommages et intérêts une somme forfaitaire qui ne peut être inférieure au montant des redevances ou droits qui auraient été dus si le contrefacteur avait demandé l'autorisation d'utiliser le droit auquel il a porté atteinte.

This can be translated as:

For assessing damages and interest, the court takes into account the negative economic consequences, including loss of profit, suffered by the injured party, the profits realized by the infringer and the moral prejudice caused to the rightholder by the infringement.

However, the court may, alternatively, upon request by the injured party, award damages as a lump sum that shall not be less than the amount of royalties or fees that would have been due if the infringer had requested authorization for the use of the right infringed.

(Thanks to my former research assistand Margaret Wade for suggesting some revisions to my original translation some months back.)   The new law would amend this provision to read:

Pour fixer les dommages et intérêts, la juridiction prend en considération distinctement :

« - les conséquences économiques négatives de la contrefaçon, dont le manque à gagner et la perte subis par la partie lésée ;

« - le préjudice moral causé à cette dernière ;

« - les bénéfices réalisés par le contrefacteur et, le cas échéant, les économies d'investissements intellectuels, matériels et promotionnels que celui-ci a retirées de la contrefaçon.

« Si la juridiction estime que les sommes qui en découlent ne réparent pas l'intégralité du préjudice subi par la partie lésée, elle ordonne au profit de cette dernière la confiscation de tout ou partie des recettes procurées par la contrefaçon.

« Toutefois, la juridiction peut, à titre d'alternative et sur demande de la partie lésée, allouer à titre de dommages et intérêts une somme forfaitaire. Cette somme est supérieure au montant des redevances ou droits qui auraient été dus si le contrefacteur avait demandé l'autorisation d'utiliser le droit auquel il a porté atteinte. »

I would translate this as:

For assessing damages and interest, the court takes into account distinctly:

the negative economic consequences, including loss of profit and the loss sustained by the injured party;

the moral prejudice incurred by the latter;

the the profits realized by the infringer and, where appropriate, the savings of intellectual, material, and promotional investments which the latter has derived from the the infringement.

If the court determines that the resulting amounts do not make good the entirety of the prejudice suffered by the injured party, it orders to the profit of the latter the confiscation of all or part of the revenue procured by the infringement. 

However, the court may, alternatively, upon request by the injured party, award damages as a lump sum.  This amount is higher than the royalties or fees that would have been due if the infringer had requested authorization for the use of the right infringed. 

According to Messrs. Buffet Delmas d'Autane and Fabre, these remedies provisions are the most ambitious part of the proposal.  They also predict there will be debate over the meaning of the terms "entirety of the prejudice" and "revenue"; and while they believe that judges have been to reluctant to apply the new rules for calculating damages permitted under the 2007 revision and therefore that the proposal is a step in the right direction, they note that some will regret that it doesn't mention taking into account the infringer's bad faith.  There also are proposed amendments relating to customs and to saisies-contrefaçon.

It appears that the French Senate has passed the proposal, see here.  The next step is the National Assembly, see here.

3.  Thorsten Bauch and Anja Petersen-Padberg recently published a couple of interesting items on the Kluwer Patent Blog.  The first is  "New Regulation on Customs Action as of 1 January 2014: In a Nutshell, Important Changes in View of Patent Rights," available here. The authors write that "Patent practitioners should note that national utility model and future unitary patents are also covered by this new Regulation."  Until now, the EU regulation on border measures did not extend to utility models, although German law did; see my book p.249 n.120.  The second is titled "Enforcement of IPR at German Trade Fairs--The Long-Standing 'On-Call Duty' of the RC Braunschweig," available here.  According to this post, "With regard to these important trade fairs and many more taking place in Hanover, the presiding judge of the specialized chamber for patent, utility model, design and trademarks at the Regional Court Braunschweig and his team are prepared to receive requests for provisional injunctions as of 7:00 am as well as on Saturdays and Sundays, depending on the schedule of the trade fair. The court is even willing to hold a hearing at the exhibition site."

4.  The EPLaw Blog has two interesting recent posts, one on a recent grant of a preliminary injunction in the Netherlands (Unilever v. Procter & Gamble), and another by Sabine Agé on a recent French case (HTC v. Nokia) holding that a party requesting a saisie-contrefaçon "has no obligation to put forward any and all defences and arguments that the defendant may raise on the merits; it should only disclose those legal and factual circumstances which might have an influence on the decision to grant the saisie order."

5.  On Bloomberg BNA World Intellectual Property Report (available here, but behind a paywall), C. Leon Kim of FirstLaw PC, Seoul, has published an article titled "Korean Presidential Council Announces IP Adjudication Reform, KIPO Introduces Changes to Patent Act."  Of most immediate relevance to patent remedies is the announcement of a "judicial reform plan to consolidate all IP litigation cases of first instance under the jurisdiction of two designated district courts and all appeal cases to be heard by one appellate court."  Also interesting is KIPO's announcement that "a computer program per se is expected to become patent eligible in Korea from 2014."  This seems to be going against prevailing sentiment in some other parts of the world these days, e.g., Germany (see here) and New Zealand. 

6.  For the last several months, I've been aiming to blog approximately three times a week.  With my teaching responsibilities resuming this month, starting next week I plan to blog only twice a week for the next few months--most likely Mondays and Thursdays--though I will chime in more frequently, as needed, if and when something of particular importance (e.g., an important Supreme Court case) comes down.  Of course, most of what I blog about is relevant to my research and teaching, so I will continue to keep abreast of new developments in the comparative law and economics of patent remedies, even if I am a little less prompt in posting.   

Thursday Miscellany: Some New Works Worth Reading

In the Wall Street Journal this morning is a story about the $2.15 billion settlement of patent infringement litigation between Pfizer and Takeda (plaintiffs) and Teva and Sun (defendant generic drug companies).  The damages trial had begun on Monday.  See also coverage here.

I've been working my way through a stack of materials on patent remedies, FRAND, and related issues, some of which I have been accumulating since my book came out.  Here, in no particular order, are some items worth taking a look at:

 1. Saisie-Contrefaçon (Pierre Véron ed., 3d ed. 2012).  Véron et Associés was kind enough to send me a copy of their edition of this treatise on the saisie-contrefaçon, an pretrial order used in France to obtain evidence of infringement (briefly discussed in my book at p.230).  The treatise provides a wealth of detail on the use of this procedure in various types of cases, along with statutory and case law annexes.  Anyone interested in IP enforcement in France will want to have this book as a reference.  In French.

2.  Tom Carver, UK Patent Disputes:  Damages, China IP, Jan. 2013, available here.  A good overview of relevant legislation and case law in the U.K.

3.   The Exercise of Essential Patents for Standards, 21 IIP Bulletin 1 (2012), available here.  This is "an English translation of the summary of a FY2011 Institute of Intellectual Property (IIP) research study report" on issues relating to standard essential patents (SEPs) in Japan, including whether a FRAND commitment constitutes a binding contract for the benefit of third parties and whether SEP owners should be able to obtain injunctions.  I hope that some of the articles summarized, in particular those by Ryuta Hirashima, Sadao Nagaoka, and Yoshiyuki Tamura, will be at some point be translated in full.

4.  Marc Grunwald, Der Kartellrechtlichte Zwangslizeneinwand:  Muss der Lizenzangebot einen Kündigungsvorbehalt für den Fall enthalten, dass der Lizenzsucher das Klagepatent angreift?, Mitt. Heft 11/2012, 492.  In German, obviously.  My translation of the title:  "The Competition Law Compulsory License  Objection:  Must a License Offer Include a Cancellation Provision in the Event the Prospective Licensee Challenges the Patent?"  The question is whether the Orange-Book-Standard defense requires the prospective licensee of a standard essential patent to agree not to challenge the patent.  The author argues to the contrary.  In somewhat the same vein, also worth looking at is Daniel Hoppe-Jänisch's commentary (also in German) following the excerpt from LG Düsseldorf, Decision of Mar. 21, 2013, 4 b O 104/12, 2013 GRUR-RR 196, 200 (the case referring questions about the Orange-Book-Standard framework to the CJEU).

5.  I haven't read this yet, but the idea sounds interesting:  an article by Jonathan Masur and Anup Malani, forthcoming in the Georgetown Law Journal, arguing for higher penalties for the losing party (plaintiff or defendant) in patent litigation.   Professor Masur's guest post on the Written Description blog summarizes the paper, which can be downloaded from ssrn. 

6.  Roger G. Brooks & Damien Geradin, Interpreting and Enforcing the Voluntary FRAND Commitment, 9 Int'l J. IT Standards & Standardization Res. 1 (2011), available here, and Dennis W. Carlton & Allan L. Shampine, An Economic Interpretation of FRAND, available on ssrn.  Two different and interesting perspectives on how to interpret FRAND commitments made to SSOs.   

And this just in:  U.S. Supreme Court holds that isolated DNA is not patentable subject matter, cDNA is.  Here's the opinion in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc.