Enforcement of Patents on Geographically Divisible Inventions: An Inquiry into the Standard of Substantive Patent Law Infringement in Cross-Border Constellations (Lex et Res Publica)

This work investigates the challenges of enforcement of patent rights in geographically divisible inventions. It considers aspects of technological progress which pose challenges to the established system of patent protection based on the territorial limitation of rights. The analysis focuses on substantive patent law, especially on the infringement provisions. It is carried out in the context of Internet-related inventions, which demonstrate an extraordinarily construed technical nature, namely geographical divisibility. This leads to the inquiry of whether the infringement standard is appropriate in relation to the technological development in ICTs. Cover 1 Abstract 7 Acknowledgements 9 Table of Contents 11 Detailed Table of Contents 15 Table of Figures 21 1. Introduction 23 Motivation 25 2. Conceptual underpinnings 29 2.1. Justifications of a system for patent protection 29 2.2. Importance of patent enforcement within the patent law regime 39 2.3. Changes in the socio-economic context 42 2.4. Enforcement in transborder network constellations 50 Cross-border enforcement of patents in Europe 55 Transborder infringement of patents 61 2.5. Outline of the legal problem: enforcement of territorially limited patents on geographically divisible inventions and global computer networks 62 3. Research question and structure 67 Focus on formal enforcement mechanisms 69 Concept of infringement 71 Focus on German and United Kingdom law 72 Definitional aspect: software versus computer-implemented inventions 74 Differentiation from existing research 77 Research Structure 81 4. Research Context 83 4.1. Literature Review 83 4.2. Enforcement of patent rights 90 4.2.1. Territoriality principle and patent enforcement 96 4.3. Patent Rights in the International Legal Order 104 International Agreements: Paris, PCT, and TRIPS 107 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) 109 4.4. Patent Rights at the regional, European level 116 4.4.1. European Patent Convention 119 4.4.2. Chronology of efforts to develop a patent system for the European Union 121 Community Patent Convention 124 4.4.3. The Unitary Patent Package 127 Unitary Patent Protection 127 Unified Patent Court 130 Objections raised by the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Italy 133 Objections raised by the Republic of Poland 134 Objections to Arts 6-8 being included in the text of the Regulation 138 Discussion 141 4.5. Conditions for patent enforcement in the European Union 144 Harmonization of patent enforcement at the EU level – Directive 2004/48/EC 146 Patent enforcement by customs and border control measures at the EU level – Regulation 1383/2003 150 4.6. The Internet as a factor in the technological shift in paradigm 151 4.6.1. Overview of the Internet development 151 4.6.2. Internet as a technology 159 4.6.3. Regulation in the cloud: legal and socio-economic aspects of cyberspace 162 Cyberspace and Sovereignty 164 4.6.4. Internet as a factor in patent enforcement 172 4.6.5. Geographically divisible inventions (GDIs)/Remotely integrated inventions 175 Characteristics 175 4.6.6. Computer programs 178 4.6.7. Conclusions on the Context of this Research 187 5. Patent Infringement 189 5.1. Determining patent infringement – a conceptual overview 190 5.1.1. All elements rule 192 5.1.2. Impact of the EPC on national patent infringement proceedings 192 5.2. National Context - Germany 198 5.2.1. Introduction 198 5.2.2. Structure of the German Patent System 199 5.2.3. Territorial nature of patents under German law 200 5.3. National Context – United Kingdom 200 5.3.1. Introduction 200 5.3.2. Structure of United Kingdom Patent System 203 5.3.3. Territorial nature of patents under UK law 205 5.4. Direct Infringement of a Patent 205 5.4.1. Direct Patent Infringement under German law(§9 PatG) 205 Literal infringement 206 Infringement by Doctrine of Equivalents 206 Direct infringement of product patents 211 Direct infringement of product-by-process claim 219 Direct infringement of a process patent 224 All elements rule in German patent law 225 5.4.2. Direct Infringement under UK law (Art. 60 (1) 1977 UK Patent Act) 226 Literal 226 By Purposive Construction 227 Direct infringement of a product patent 230 Direct infringement of a process patent 239 Direct infringement of a product by process patent 240 5.5. Indirect Patent Infringement 240 5.5.1. Indirect Infringement in Germany (§10 PatG) 240 5.5.2. Indirect Infringement under UK law (Art. 60 (2) 1977 UK Patent Act) 255 5.6. Other forms of liability for patent infringement 261 5.6.1. Other forms of liability - Germany 261 Joint and vicarious liability 264 Criminal liability 265 5.6.2. Other forms of liability – United Kingdom 265 Joint tortfeasorship 266 5.7. Conclusions from comparative analysis of substantive patent infringement provisions in Germany and the United Kingdom 267 6. Infringement of patents on geographically divisible inventions 271 6.1. German jurisprudence: Prepaid Cards II 271 6.2. UK jurisprudence: Menashe v. William Hill 276 6.3. Discussion 280 6.4. Geographically divisible inventions in the American jurisprudence 283 6.4.1. NTP v. RIM 284 6.4.2. Akamai Tech. v Limelight Netw 291 6.5. Conclusions based on case law exploration 296 Infringement constellations for further consideration 296 Approaches developed by the Courts 296 7. Policy implications 301 7.1. Introduction 301 7.2. Current Legislative Proposals 301 Unitary patent protection 302 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) 305 7.3. Alternatives to patent-based protection of inventions 306 7.4. Patent-based protection 310 7.4.1. Assessment framework 310 7.4.2. Criteria 316 Patent theory – theoretical underpinnings 316 Objectives of patent enforcement 319 International Obligations 322 Economic considerations 323 7.5. Appraisal of solutions provided in the literature 325 Lemley et al. – divided infringement 325 Teter – perspective claims 328 Wasserman – extension of extraterritoriality 329 Robins – Institutional solution 330 Dreyfuss – full harmonization of substantive patent law 331 Haupt – key element test 332 7.6. Discussion 334 7.7. Recommendation 336 Amendment proposal 336 Amendment evaluation 340 7.8. Final Considerations 344 8. Conclusion 349 Zusammenfassung der Dissertation 355 Bibliography 373 Literature 373 Case law 410 Court of Justice of the European Union 410 Germany 412 Federal Supreme Court of Germany (Bundesgerichtshof) 412 German Federal Patent Court 415 Appeals Courts (Oberlandesgerichte) 415 District Courts (Landesgerichte) 416 United Kingdom 417 House of Lords / Supreme Court (since Oct. 2009) 417 Court of Appeals of England and Wales 417 High Court of Justice of England and Wales 418 United States 420 United States Court of Claims 420 Supreme Court of the United States 420 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 421 United States International Trade Commission 421 Legal documents 421 International Agreements 421 European Union Documents 423 Directives 423 Regulations 424 National Legal Texts 425 Draft Legal Texts 425 Abbreviations 427 Annex 1 National patent laws 433 Annex 2 Unitary patent: infringement provisions 443 This work investigates the challenges of enforcement of patent rights in geographically divisible inventions. It is an inquiry into challenges posed by Internet to the established system of patent protection based on the territorial limitation of rights and focuses on substantive patent law, especially on the infringement provisions.