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Dissertation
Immaterialgüter- und Wettbewerbsrecht

Preliminary injunctions in European and US patent litigation

This dissertation looks at the role preliminary injunctions have in patent litigation, and the way courts deal with the decision to grant or deny a request for such a form of interim relief. In doing so, the research is legal-comparative of nature (EU, US, DE, UK, NL, UPC), and it also goes into Law and Economics issues.

Last Update: 09.02.16

This includes the general introduction to the dissertation, and the first chapter on the Law and Economics and doctrinal basis. In this chapter, research goes into the cited justifications of preliminary injunctions (i.e. to maintain the status quo, to prevent irreparable harm, to prevent periculum in mora and the connection between substantive and enforcement law) and subsequently a look has been taken at four different Law and Economic theories for the control of preliminary injunction. Other paragraphs in this first chapter deal with  a range of different issues connected to the legal and economic roles of preliminary injunctions: from its place in the property and liability rule framework, to the issue of erroneous decisions.

 

Also written is the second chapter that goes into the legislative framework and the legal tests that courts have developed in the jurisdictions that are looked into: TRIPS, the EU Enforcement Directive, United States, Germany and Netherlands. In the national jurisdictions, the peculiarities of the respective system are subject of research; for instance the issue of patent (in)validity and preliminary proceedings.

 

At the end of September 2015, the third and fourth chapter of my dissertation - looking into case law and typicalities of preliminary injunctions with respect to pharmaceuticals and with respect to electronics - are for a large point written, and together cover a significant number of cases giving an impression of how courts deal with preliminary injunctions in practice.

 

Also largely done, is the fifth chapter, which is on issues and challenges of preliminary injunctions in patent litigation under the Unified Patent Court.

Persons

Doctoral Student

Arthur von Martels

Doctoral Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Ansgar Ohly

Main Areas of Research

Interessensausgleich