Swedish Patent Litigation in Comparison to European

Swedish patent litigation in comparison to European. Access to the published version may require subscription. Introduction A first large-scale systematic comparison of patent litigation across European jurisdictions was published in 2013 by Cremers et al., with data from Germany, UK (England and Wales), France and the Netherlands. 1 We have developed comparable statistics for Swedish patent cases. The new Swedish data is in this article juxtaposed with the results from the earlier European study. The present comparison between Sweden and a number of other European patent jurisdictions may be of value to different stakeholders in the Swedish and European patent systems. Parties contemplating patent litigation are often dealing with potential infringements in multiple European jurisdictions and have a choice concerning jurisdiction. Decisions in this regard are influenced by a range of circumstances, such as costs, potential damages, duration of dispute, percentage of successful infringement/invalidity cases, etc. We have with a practice-oriented concern strived to collect previously unavailable data on a number of these considerations, pertaining to the particular Swedish patent jurisdiction. The data might equally be of use from a broader policy-perspective. It might facilitate analysis of potential changes probably brought into play in the near future by establishment of the Unified Patent Court and a possible introduction of a specialized Swedish Patents and Markets Court. Our general aim has been to address a lack of empirical evidence on patent litigation in Sweden (infringement and invalidity). To fill this void we gauge data on Swedish patent cases initiated (filed) in the period 2000–2008. We have endeavored to cover all such cases filed at the Stockholm District court (the exclusive jurisdiction in Sweden for patent invalidity and infringement cases) dur-student at the Law faculty of Stockholm University. We are all very thankful for the support received from VINNOVA, the Ratio institute and the Romanusfonden that has enabled us to perform the work resulting in the present article. A special thanks to Erik Tengbjörk who downloaded the Amadeus data and patent data for firm size and technology classifications. Swedish Patent Litigation in Comparison to European 505 ing said period. Appeals to Svea Court of Appeal and The Swedish Supreme Court have also been collected and examined. The cases have often been decided after 2008. The years 2000–2008 were chosen for two reasons: in order to cover the same time period as the study performed by Cremers et al. and also in order …