News on Injunctions

1.  In August, Annsley Merelle Ward published a post on IPKat titled Irish Supreme Court in Merck v. Clonmel puts "adequacy of damages" back in the balance when granting preliminary injunctions.  The post includes an analysis by Colette Brady on a recent Irish Supreme Court opinion in Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Clonmel Healthcare Limited that modifies the application of the standard for granting a preliminary injunction.  The standard in Ireland is the same as the English American Cyanamid standard, but until this case the Irish courts tended to deny preliminary injunctions if, in their view, damages would provide an adequate remedy.  The new understanding of the standard requires the courts to consider adequacy as part of the overall balance of convenience inquiry (even while stating that "The most important element in that balance is, in most cases, the question of adequacy of damages" (para. 64(4)). 

For more on the American Cyanamid standard, see my book Comparative Patent Remedies at pp. 176-79. 

2.  Rafael García Pérez published a paper in 2016 that I only recently came across, titled Injunctions in Intellectual Property Cases:  What Is the Power of the Courts?, 1 I.P.Q. 87 (2016).  Here is the abstract:

This article argues that even after the enactment of Directive 2004/48 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, the English courts retain a discretionary power to grant injunctions in intellectual property cases. It is suggested that the traditional tenets regarding the exercise of discretion in granting injunctions are still valid, and that the principles enshrined in art.3 of the Directive (efficacy, proportionality, dissuasiveness, etc.) come into play once the court has decided to grant an injunction, as benchmarks to model it. Moreover, the article proposes an interpretation of art.12 of the Directive ("alternative measures"), based on the distinction between cases in which damages in lieu of an injunction are awarded to the benefit of the infringer, and cases in which an injunction is granted to the benefit of the intellectual property owner.

3.  Song Jian published an article titled Overview and Analysis of Apple and Qualcomm's Global Battle, China Patents & Trademarks No. 3, 96-104 (2019).  The article discusses the Apple/Qualcomm disputes in China, the U.S., and Germany, including the temporary injunctions entered against Apple by the Fuzhou Intermediate Court in November 2018.