Patrick Oliver

As the European Commission turns its attention to helping improve the regulatory environment for SMEs here is a true story about how patent trolls broke the back of a successful small European business.

IP2Innovate

On Friday the European Commission and the Portuguese Presidency of the EU will invite member states to support a declaration regarding startups that seeks to create common standards in areas such as access to finance and social inclusion. Ms Rantasaari feels that patent issues are missing from this otherwise useful initiative.

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.