SCOPE OF PROTECTION AND DEPENDENCE BETWEEN PATENT RIGHTS

Abstract

Based on European doctrine and the Author's previous work, the present work intends to illuminate the judicatively complex question of what are the requirements or assumptions whose verification make a invention patented (and therefore a technical solution provided with inventive activity and novelty in relation to the state of the art) “mysteriously” dependent on another previously patented invention, allowing the holder of the latter (dominant patent) to prevent the commercial exploitation of the first (dependent patent) - a situation that is susceptible of being released by entering into a voluntary license agreement or by granting a compulsory license. Basically, taking into account the Portuguese Industrial Property Code, European doctrine and jurisprudence and the European Patent Convention, we seek to demonstrate that the solution to these issues lies in the delimitation of the concrete (technological) scope of patent protection previously registered.