IP2Innovate

There is broad agreement on the need for taking proportionality considerations into account in patent litigation cases but it’s not being applied in the courts in Europe. As a result, injunctions are being handed out automatically in almost all cases, even though EU legislation – the IP Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) – specifically calls for judges to apply proportionality. IPRED needs targeted amendments in order to correct this. In his paper titled Permanent Injunctions and the Reception of the Principle of Proportionality in the European Union, Rafal Sikorski, assistant professor, Chair of European Law at the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznan in Poland, calls for reform of the directive. “The EU should consider introducing a set of factors to IPRED that the courts should consider when applying proportionality. In fact, this approach has already been taken by the EU legislator in the Trade Secrets Directive,” Professor Sikorski said in an interview.

IP2Innovate

Professor Alain Strowel’s academic curiosity was first sparked by philosophy. At 18 he went to the universities he would later work for as a law professor, the Université Saint-Louis in Brussels and the UCLouvain.

IP2Innovate

In the paper by Professor Sikorski, titled: Towards a more orderly application of proportionality to patent injunctions in the EU, he proposes changes needed to safeguard Europe’s patent system from abuse by opportunistic PAEs.