Never Too Late: If you missed the IPKat last week!

Starting with a brand new week, here is your weekly catch-up!

Technology Law

Image by Riana Harvey

Katfriend Victoria Dipla reviewed the book Technology, Intellectual Property Law and Culture: the Tangification of Intangible Cultural Heritage by Megan Rae Blakely. It primarily focuses on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and its relationship with Intellectual Property and includes 8 chapters. The book has many interesting chapters, especially the very last one, which includes the digital and virtual worlds of the modern era, mentioning a third wave of ICH adoption.

Patents

Guest UPCKats, Hiske Roos, and Laura Mikkelsen (Carpmaels), reported on the recent decision of Mala Technologies v Nokia UPC_CFI-484/2023. The two revocation actions Nokia had filed against Mala’s EP 2 044 709 in the German national court and the UPC included the main issue on the lis pendens rules in Art. 29 – 31 of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012. The Court divided this key issue into three questions and referred to Art. 31 UPCA, which determines the international jurisdiction of the UPC. Rose Hughes analysed T 1259/22 concerning the patent of a cell therapy treatment for cancer patients using plerixafor. Plerixafor (Mozobil) is used to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy in a method of cell therapy for cancer patients in which the patient's stem cells are harvested before chemotherapy. This patent, which is related to a cell therapy treatment, has the challenge of defining the specific product of the therapy. Here, the “product” is a heterogenous population of living cells, making defining it in a patent claim challenging. In this regard, the Board of Appeal went through a step-by-step process to find a treatment-related link between the claimed composition and a claimed medical step. However, in the end, it was concluded that there was a lack of novelty, and the patent was revoked.

IP Job Opportunities and Events

In the last Saturday Sundries post, Kevin Bercimuelle-Chamot informed the readers about several events and opportunities. These include the EIPTN’s 16th Anniversary Conference and the oriGIn 2024 Expert Meeting, both of which will be held in October 2024, and several job opportunities. Moreover, WIPO has published a working paper titled “Closing Innovation and Intellectual Property Diversity Gaps which you can check here.