Cross Border Relief à-la-US
In Europe we had our time when the Netherlands courts, soon followed by courts in Germany, rendered cross border relief under a European Patent in most of the 90’s. This effort to create a truly European wide enforcement of patents after a uniformed granting procedure, was stalled after the ECJ’s decisions in GAT vs. Luk and Primus et al vs. Roche.
In the US extra territoriality is now also at the heart of a judicial review. On October 27, the US Supreme Court granted certiorari (accepted to hear a case) in the Microsoft vs. AT&T case. In 1984 the US Patent Law (article 35 USC § 271(f) extended infringement liability for the export of unpatented physical components of a patented combination. The current precedent is the “Deepsouth” case in which it was held that making and shipping component parts of a patented combination invention did not constitute ‘making’ the patented invention in the United States. In the pending US case this position will be reconsidered by the US Supreme Court. It will have vast consequences.
see Prof. Harold C. Wegner’s paper “Microsoft Extraterritoriality: “Mutiny…Heresy” where he argues that while the Microsoft case is generally understood in the business press as merely involving whether there is liability for the export of software to be loaded onto original equipment personal computers, this is an oversimplification of the issues. In fact, there are two issues before the Court, Prof. Wegner argues, the first questioning whether software or object code is capable of being a “component” of a patented combination for purposes of the statute, and only in the second instance whether there is infringement liability.
See also the US patent weblog Patently-O.
In the US extra territoriality is now also at the heart of a judicial review. On October 27, the US Supreme Court granted certiorari (accepted to hear a case) in the Microsoft vs. AT&T case. In 1984 the US Patent Law (article 35 USC § 271(f) extended infringement liability for the export of unpatented physical components of a patented combination. The current precedent is the “Deepsouth” case in which it was held that making and shipping component parts of a patented combination invention did not constitute ‘making’ the patented invention in the United States. In the pending US case this position will be reconsidered by the US Supreme Court. It will have vast consequences.
see Prof. Harold C. Wegner’s paper “Microsoft Extraterritoriality: “Mutiny…Heresy” where he argues that while the Microsoft case is generally understood in the business press as merely involving whether there is liability for the export of software to be loaded onto original equipment personal computers, this is an oversimplification of the issues. In fact, there are two issues before the Court, Prof. Wegner argues, the first questioning whether software or object code is capable of being a “component” of a patented combination for purposes of the statute, and only in the second instance whether there is infringement liability.
See also the US patent weblog Patently-O.
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