Our partner Federico Caruso and Valentina Predazzi, partner at SIB, have commented a recent decision of The Hague Local Division of the Unified Patent Court to grant a request for preliminary injunction filed by the holder of a European patent, covering the “Heirloom” mushroom.
The request was aimed at a mushroom farmer who had, according to the plaintiff, infringed its patent rights.
The court upheld the validity of the plaintiff’s patent, finding that mushrooms are not “plants” and therefore do not fall under the rule against the patentability of plants set forth by European Patent law.
It is interesting to note that according to the decision, the plaintiff’s delay in taking action against the infringing product was not to be considered unreasonable, since technical analyses requiring several months were necessary to gather evidence of the infringement and refute the arguments raised by the defendant.
Read the whole article published by The IPKat as a guest post, thanks to Kat Jocelyn Bosse.
Recent Comments