Still a safe bet for cross border injunctions

The court in The Hague, highly specialised in patent law, assumed jurisdiction in most cross border patent cases. The Hague would readily grant a cross border injunction when it judged the plaintiff to be right.

This changed when the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) put an end to this practice in its 2006 GAT-LuK ruling. This ruling was based on the Convention of September 27, 1968, entitled Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters.

It was then decided that only the judge of the country in which the patent is registered has jurisdiction relating to the registration or validity of a patent, irrespective of whether the issue is raised by way of an action or a plea in objection. This rule is based on the following arguments: