The cases that are of interest to us are the international disputes, whether contractual or extra-contractual. In each of the countries the parties are confronted with the infringement issue, the injunction issue, the nullity issue, which even in cases of contracts cannot be avoided, and sometimes different courts are competent for each issue and then, if the dispute affects six, eight, ten countries, there are quite a number of cases pending. Experience shows that in these huge international industrial property disputes the foreseeable end is that parties give some and take some. This is inevitable, because all these national law systems are different. Even if European patents are affected, the interpretation may ultimately be different.
Some patent laws use the whole contents approach.
Everything that is contained in an earlier publication counts against novelty. Other countries use the prior claim approach. Only what is in the patent claims of earlier patents counts against the novelty. It is foreseeable that this may lead to completely different results in different countries. There are similar distinctions in other fields of patent law and patent infringement law as well.