Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Jul-03-2013
Lord Sumption (with whom Lady Hale, Lord Clarke and Lord Carnwath agree) 1. In this case, Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd wishes to recover damages exceeding 49,000,000 for the infringement of a European Patent which does not exist in the form said to have been infringed. The Technical Board of Appeal ("TBA") of the European Patent Office ("EPO") has retrospectively amended it so as to remove with effect from the date of grant all the claims said to have been infringed. 2. The TBA found that in the form in which the patent was originally granted the relevant claims were invalid because they had been anticipated by prior art. Virgin says that it is nevertheless entitled to recover damages for infringement because before the TBA had issued its decision, the English courts had held the patent to be valid and specifically rejected the objection based on prior art. Their case is that this conclusion and the finding of validity on which it is based are res judicata notwithstanding the later but ...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jun-17-2013
Fed. Trade Comm'n v. Actavis, Inc. NOTE:Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION v. ACTAVIS, INC., etal. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eleventh circuit No. 12416.Argued March 25, 2013Decided June 17, 2013 The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (Hatch-Waxman Act or Act) creates special procedures for identifying and resolving patent disputes between brand-name and generic drug manufacturers, one of which requires a prospective generic manufacturer to assure the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that it will not infringe the brand-names patents....
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Mar-13-2013
LORD NEUBERGER (with whom Lord Walker, Lady Hale, Lord Mance and Lord Kerr agree) 1. A person infringes a patent for a particular product if "he makes, disposes of, offers to dispose of, uses or imports the product or keeps it " “ see section 60(1)(a) of the Patents Act 1977 ("the 1977 Act"). The principle issue on this appeal concerns the meaning of the word "makes". The other aspect of this appeal raises a number of issues arising out of section 68 of the 1977 Act. The background facts and the patent in suit Intermediate Bulk Containers 2. An intermediate bulk container, unsurprisingly known as an "IBC", is a large container, normally around 1000 litres in volume, used for the transport of liquids. Such containers face tough transport conditions. They must be capable of bearing heavy weights (as much as six tonnes, as they are often stacked four-high), of withstanding prolonged or violent vibration, and of resisting the forces caused by the liquid splashing around inside, witho...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jun-13-2013
Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc. NOTE:Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus ASSOCIATION FOR MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY etal. v. MYRIAD GENETICS, INC., etal. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the federal circuit No. 12398.Argued April 15, 2013Decided June 13, 2013 Each human gene is encoded as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which takes the shape of a double helix. Each cross-bar in that helix consists of two chemically joined nucleotides. Sequences of DNA nucleotides contain the information necessary to create strings of amino acids used to build proteins in the body. The nucleotides that...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Jan-23-2013
LORD NEUBERGER (with whom Lord Walker agrees) Introductory 1. The specific issue raised by this appeal is whether, following receipt of a statutory notice from an inspector of taxes to produce documents in connection with its tax affairs, a company is entitled to refuse to comply on the ground that the documents are covered by legal advice privilege (LAP), in a case where the legal advice was given by accountants in relation to a tax avoidance scheme. The more general question raised by this issue is whether LAP extends, or should be extended, so as to apply to legal advice given by someone other than a member of the legal profession, and, if so, how far LAP thereby extends, or should be extended. The statutory provisions applicable in this case 2. The statutory provisions in force at the time during which the events giving rise to the present proceedings took place were in the Taxes Management Act 1970 ("TMA"). All references in this judgment to sections are to sections of that Act, u...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Oct-16-2013
LORD MANCE (with whom Lord Hope, Lord Hughes and Lord Kerr agree) Summary 1. Two appeals are before the Court by prisoners who were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. In the case of the appellant Peter Chester, the tariff period fixed by the sentencing judge expired on 29 October 1997, but he has not yet satisfied the Parole Board that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that he should be confined. In the case of the appellant George McGeoch, the sentencing judge fixed a punishment part of 13 years which expired on 7 October 2011, but he has committed various intervening offences including violently escaping from lawful custody in 2008 for which he received a seven and a half year consecutive sentence. The result is that the earliest date on which McGeoch could be considered for parole is July 2015. 2. Both the appellants claim that their rights have been and are being infringed by reason of their disenfranchisement from voting. Chester's cla...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Jan-09-2013
Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc. NOTE:Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus ALREADY, LLC, dba YUMS v. NIKE, INC. certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit No. 11982.Argued November 7, 2012Decided January 9, 2013 Nike filed this suit, alleging that two of Alreadys athletic shoes violated Nikes Air Force 1 trademark. Already denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim challenging the validity of Nikes Air Force 1 trademark. While the suit was pending, Nike issued a Covenant Not to Sue, promising not to raise any trademark or unfair competition claims against Already or any affiliated entity bas...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Apr-17-2013
LORD SUMPTION (with whom Lord Neuberger, Lord Kerr, Lord Clarke and Lord Carnwath agree) The issue 1. This appeal raises an important question about the application of copyright law to the technical processes involved in viewing copyright material on the internet. The owner of a copyright has the exclusive right to do or to authorise a number of acts defined in sections 16 to 26 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Broadly speaking, it is an infringement to make or distribute copies or adaptations of a protected work. Merely viewing or reading it is not an infringement. A person who reads a pirated copy of a protected book or views a forgery of a protected painting commits no infringement although the person who sold him the book or forged the painting may do. 2. The ordinary use of the internet will involve the creation of temporary copies at several stages. Copies will be created in the course of transmission in internet routers and proxy servers. Where a web-page is viewe...
Tag this Judgment!Court : UK Supreme Court
Decided on : Dec-18-2013
LORD REED (with whom Lord Wilson, Lord Sumption and Lord Hodge agree) 1. This appeal concerns the interpretation and application of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 ("the Act"). The appellant is a patient detained in the State Hospital at Carstairs who made an application to the Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland ("the tribunal") for an order under section 264(2) of the Act, declaring that he was being detained under conditions of excessive security and specifying a period during which the duties under section 264(3) and (5) should be performed. His application was refused. An appeal to the Court of Session against that decision, under section 322 of the Act, was also refused ([2011] CSIH 55; 2012 SC 138). He now appeals to this court. 2. For the reasons I shall explain, the appeal must be dismissed. It has however provided an opportunity to clarify the nature of decision-making under section 264(2), and the factors which are relevant to the proper applicatio...
Tag this Judgment!Court : US Supreme Court
Decided on : Feb-20-2013
Gunn v. Minton NOTE:Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus GUNN etal. v. MINTON certiorari to the supreme court of texas No. 111118.Argued January 16, 2013Decided February 20, 2013 Petitioner attorneys represented respondent Minton in a federal patent infringement suit. The District Court declared Mintons patent invalid under the on sale bar since he had leased his interactive securities trading system to a securities brokerage more than one year prior to the date of the [patent] application. 35 U.S.C. 102(b). In a motion for reconsideration, Minton argued for the first time that the lease was part of ongoing testing, an...
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