L’Europe menacée par les «chasseurs de brevets»?

WIPR

Implementers have welcomed reforms to Germany’s laws which weaken patent owners’ right to an injunction if successful in litigation, but their impact on case law remains to be seen.

In a recent  the German Conservatives (CDU/CSU) Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker and Ingmar Jung express concerns over abusive litigation practices by patent trolls, which distort the market and undermine Germany’s attractiveness as a business location. They note that in light of the high complexity of modern products, companies can no longer completely rule out the possibility of patent infringements. In this context, an unlimited right to injunctive relief create unwarranted leverage for patent trolls who buy up patents only to assert them against companies and extract disproportionately high settlements. Solutions proposed by CDU/CSU are the introduction of a proportionality test in the German Patent Act as well as a synchronisation of infringement and nullity proceedings.

Handelsblatt

A change to the German #patent is likely to adopted this Friday, which for the first time considers the complexity of modern products in the digital age.