by María Aránzazu Gandía Sellens

MPILux Working Paper 2 (2016)

Abstract: The litigation of patent rights is strongly influenced by the territoriality principle, meaning that patent rights currently need to be litigated in each and every granting State, due to the fact that the granting State has exclusive jurisdiction for determining the validity of patent rights granted in respect of its territory. To identify the impact of such an exclusive jurisdiction, patent infringement cases are analyzed in order to provide for a framework, as they are the most common causa petendi in the courts as regards patent rights. The analysis not only focuses on judicial litigation (linked to the traditional courts) but also takes into account the possibility of arbitrating or mediating a dispute on infringement of patent rights.

Keywords: international litigation, patent infringement, patent validity, jurisdiction, arbitrability, mediability.