Cross-border injunction

In European law, and especially in European intellectual property law, a cross-border injunction is an injunction by a court in one European country, such as a court in the Netherlands forbidding infringement in several other European countries.

For a period in the late-1990s, national courts issued cross-border injunctions covering all EP jurisdictions, but this has been limited by the European Court of Justice. In two cases in July 2006, interpreting Articles 6.1 and 16.4 of the Brussels Convention, the European Court of Justice held that European patents are national rights that must be enforced nationally, that it was "unavoidable" that infringements of the same European patent have to be litigated in each relevant national court, even if the lawsuit is against the same group of companies, and that cross-border injunctions are not available.^[1]

References and further reading

1. ^ Case C-4/03, Gesellschaft für Antriebstechnik v Lamellen und Kupplungsbau Beteiligungs KG, (European Ct. of Justice 13 July 2006); Case C-539/03, Roche Nederland BV v Primus, (European Ct. of Justice 13 July 2006)

• Jochen Buhling, Cross-border injunctions in patent infringement cases: paradise lost?, Building and enforcing intellectual property value 2007, p172-175.
• Is there an After-Life for Pan European Injunctions?, IPEG blog, March 27, 2008

See also

• Brussels Regime
• Enforcement of European patents
• Lis alibi pendens
• Spider in the web doctrine