European Union: Intellectual Property

The Hamburg Local Division of the Unified Patent Court addresses an application for provisional measures in patent infringement proceedings involving a European patent related to child safety products. The case involves Cybex GmbH seeking interim relief against NUNA International B.V. and Allison GmbH under the Rules of Procedure governing urgent patent disputes.

A Dutch court ruled that a carnival band's parody song using ABBA's melody doesn't qualify for copyright protection under the parody exception. The decision centered on whether commercial streaming exploitation of "Dikke Pens" - which replaces the lyrics of "Take a Chance on Me" with content about obesity - strikes the proper balance between copyright holder rights and freedom of expression.

The Mannheim Local Division of the Unified Patent Court addressed a procedural application by Google LLC and Google Germany GmbH seeking to change the language of infringement proceedings from German to English under Rule 323 of the Rules of Procedure. The decision examines how a claimant's demonstrated capacity to litigate in English in comparable proceedings may outweigh traditional factors such as party size and domicile when determining language-of-proceedings applications under Article 49(5) UPCA.