Patent Law

Maximilian Haedicke is Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the University of Freiburg. Henrik Timmann is a patent litigator in Düsseldorf.

§ 1. Introduction
A. Ambit, meaning, goals and means of patent law
B. Historic development
C. Relevant sources of law
D. Patent law and neighbouring legal fields
E. Patent law and competition law
F. Patent law and the European Single Market
§ 2. Inventions and their amenability to patent protection
A. The "Technical Invention" criterion
B. Catalogue of exclusions (Section. 1 para. 3–4 PatG resp. Art. 52 para. 2–3 EPC)
C. The "industrial applicability" criterion
D. Obstacles to protection
E. Differentiation from the state of the art
F. Realisability and sufficiency of disclosure for realisability
§ 3. Ownership
A. Inventor and inventor right
B. Multiple owners
C. Recovery of inventors' rights (rei vindicatio)
§ 4. Patent transfer and licensing
A. Common foundations of patent transfer and licensing
B. Full transfer of patents
C. Licenses
§ 5. Grant and rejection of patents
A. The proceedings for grant
B. Opposition proceedings
C. Appeal proceedings
D. Nullity proceedings
E. Limitation and revocation proceedings
F. Lapse without retroactive effect
§ 6. Interpretation and scope of protection of patents
A. Basic outline
B. The importance of the patent specification as a source for interpretation
C. The importance of sources outside the patent specification
D. Extension of the scope of protection to equivalents
§ 7. Chemical and biological inventions
A. Introduction and development
B. Definitions, exceptions and special cases regarding biological inventions
C. Prerequisites for patent registration
D. Scope of protection and types of claims
E. Effects of the patent
§ 8. Use of a patent
A. General
B. Direct use of a patent
C. Indirect use of a patent
D. Liability and imputation
§ 9. Defences
A. Permitted acts under Section 11 PatG
B. Exhaustion
C. Prior use law according to Section 12 PatG
D. Defence of invalidity
E. Fraudulant abstraction
F. Objection of a compulsory licence under antitrust law
G. Forfeiture of rights
§ 10. Legal consequences of patent infringement
A. Creditors and debtors of claims for infringement
B. Injunctive relief
C. Claim for damages
D. Claims for unjust enrichment and claims for compensation
E. Claims for information and accounts
F. Claim for recall and destruction
G. Statute of limitation for the claims
H. Publication of a judgment
§ 11. European Patent and European Patent Court
I. Current position
II. The European Patent with unitary effect
§ 12. Other proceedings and claims in patent cases
A. Criminal patent law
B. Border seizure proceedings
C. Allegation of entitlement and misleading advertising
D. Claims arising from unjustified warnings of property right infringement
§ 13. The law of utility models
A. General
B. Protection: Subject-matter and prerequisites
C. Inventor's rights and invention ownership
D. Formation and expiration of the utility model
E. Content and scope of protection of the utility model
F. Utility models in business transactions
G. Consequences of the utility model infringement under civil law
H. Consequences of the utility model infringement under criminal law
I. Utility model infringement action
I. Pre-trial measures: Gathering evidence and warning
J. Unjustly claiming a utility model
§ 14. The supplementary protection certificate
A. General, purpose, history and legal character of the certificate
B. Substantive granting prerequisites
C. Calculation of term
D. Subject matter and scope of protection
E. Rights, limitations and obligations
F. Grant procedure
G. Expiry, invalidity and revocation
H. Remedies