SEP Litigation and Huawei

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 786-805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rupprecht Podszun

In the 2015 case Huawei/ZTE, the Court of Justice of the European Union took one of its rare opportunities to rule on the interface of antitrust and patent law. The question before the Court was whether the holder of a standard-essential patent abuses a dominant position by seeking an injunction against a potential licensee. Regarding a previous line of cases under European law, the Court took a surprisingly easy solution by forcing the companies to get back to the negotiation table. This may be attributed to a new methodological balancing approach of the Court. While acknowledging the problem of patent thickets, the Court restrains the role of antitrust authorities in this field.

Arena Hukum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-244
Author(s):  
Sih Wahyuningtyas

The role of patents is complex when dealing with the problem of technological interoperability in cases where patented technology becomes standard. In such cases, a balance is needed between the protection of the interests of the inventor, i.e. the standard essential patent (SEP) holder, and of users who need the technology to enter the market. There is a susceptibility to restrictions on competition to create markets (competition for the market). Market dominance can be created by the adoption of SEP holder technology as a standard and hence, a key for other business actors to enter the market. With the potential for the formation of a dominant position in the relevant market, the competition law intervention is required when patent abuse occurs, as it appears typical in the pharmaceutical and information technology industries. The normative research examines how competition law in the European Union deals with SEP cases in comparison to Indonesian competition law.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 1939-1958 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert van Roermund

Why do fundamental rights and market freedoms attract and repel each other? Why can they neither be together nor remain separate? This paper argues that at least part of the explanation is that they are each governed by different types of “logic.” They are at the fault-lines of different discourses. Market freedoms are promoted in a technological discourse, fundamental rights in a teleological discourse. The former are expressed in an observational view from above, while the latter embody the view of a first-person agent. Travelling back and forth between these two discourses, as legal authorities like the European legislator and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) often have to do, is an ambiguous enterprise. It may create opacity, but it may also bring clarity to the otherwise muddy waters of a “common” (now: “internal”) EU market under capitalist conditions. Much is dependent on their ability to orientate themselves on a map that recognizes the poles of these discourses, technology and teleology. This paper contributes to drawing that map through analysis of a case study in patent law involving the concept of an embryo. Construed as “an autonomous concept of European law” the notion of an embryo will appear to be paradigmatic of alternative ways in which the two discourses may relate to each other.


2000 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Wincott

OVER THE LAST DECADE AND A HALF THE PART PLAYED BY THE European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the construction and operation of the European Union has become controversial. Relatively unnoticed beyond specialist legal circles in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the role of the Court featured prominently in the debates occasioned by the Treaty of Maastricht. In this article I consider the use of heroic and villainous imagery to describe the Court. After arguing that such imagery now conceals more than it reveals, I suggest that if its role is to be understood properly, the Court needs to be placed in strategic context. For convenience, the discussion of strategic context, which makes up the largest part of this article, is divided into five sections. In turn these sections consider member state executives, other European Union institutions, ‘European’ law(s), European Community law and actors in civil society (particularly litigants).


Author(s):  
Dieter Grimm

This chapter examines the role of national constitutional courts in European democracy. It first provides an overview of national constitutional courts in Europe, focusing on the requirements that they impose on national institutions and the consequences of those requirements at the treaty level—i.e., transferring national powers to the European Union and regulating how these powers are exercised; at the level of the EU’s exercise of these powers; and at the level of implementing European law within national legal systems. The chapter also discusses how the European Court of Justice’s jurisprudence enabled the European treaties to function as a constitution; the non-political mechanism of EU decisions and how it promotes economic liberalization; and how the design and function of European primary law undermine democracy. The chapter suggests that the democratic legitimacy imparted to the EU’s decisions by its citizens can only develop within the framework of the European Parliament’s powers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-242
Author(s):  
Muriel Lightbourne

Recent developments in the field of European law, in relation to subject-matter consisting of living material, raise a string of basic issues as to the legal qualification of certain techniques used in agriculture and medicine, such as CRISPR-Cas9, and regarding their appraisal under European patent law. The present article reviews a series of decisions, including the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in case C-528/16, the decision issued on 7 February 2020 by the French Council of State and the Opinion of the European Patent Office Enlarged Board of Appeal of 14 May 2020 on Referral G 3/19.


Author(s):  
Robert Schütze

This chapter describes the direct enforcement of European law in the European Courts. The judicial competences of the European Courts are enumerated in the section of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) dealing with the Court of Justice of the European Union. The chapter discusses four classes of judicial actions. The first class is typically labelled an ‘enforcement action’ in the strict sense of the term. This action is set out in Articles 258 and 259 TFEU and concerns the failure of a Member State to act in accordance with European law. The three remaining actions ‘enforce’ the European Treaties against the EU itself. These actions can be brought for a failure to act, for judicial review, and for damages.


2012 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 529-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Bobek

AbstractWhy are there Advocates General in the Court of Justice of the European Union? A standard answer to this question is likely to be either a simple textual reference (because the Treaty provides for them); or an appeal to authority (because the original framers of the Treaties put them there, inspired by the French legal system); or a rather pragmatic appeal to their on-going utility (because they assist the Court and they do a great job); or any combination of these three. All of these explanations are valid. This contribution, however, attempts to go a little deeper in discerning what may be the ideological justification for Advocates General in the Court of Justice. It does so by carrying out a historical and comparative study concerning their origins and systemic justification from the vantage point of a national lawyer coming from a Member State that does not know any type of a ‘fourth in the court’.The first part of the contribution explains which factors have considerably eroded the position of Advocates General in the course of the last decade and why questions concerning their role and its justification became topical. Second, the commonly invoked reference to the French inspiration for introducing Advocates General is critically examined. It is suggested that justifications once provided with respect to the office of commissaire du gouvernement in the Conseil d’État can hardly be used on the European level with respect to Advocates General. Third, possibilities of internal justification of the role of Advocates General are examined: are Advocates General providing any unique assistance to the Court of Justice, which could not be provided for in different ways? With a negative answer to the latter question, the last part of the argument offers a simple yet solid overreaching justification as to why there should be Advocates General in the Court of Justice.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Anna Kęskiewicz

The use of dogmatic-legal, empirical and linguistic semantics methodology is focused on sharing for better understanding of the law. Therefore, views on European jurisprudence have been presented in the paper. Without a doubt, the law-making nature of European Union law takes into account the field of environmental protection. Articles in law define the tasks that are important from the point of view of European legislation. The written nature of these determinants of the reasoning of the possibilities of environmental protection plays an important role in the interpretation of environmental law.


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