Europe

Notable Legal Work

Our firm undertakes patent infringement proceedings on behalf of various international companies in diverse areas of all levels.

• One of these infringement proceedings has been initiated by a big electronics company, which filed actions against seven Greek companies that have violated its patent rights and are not willing to sign license agreements and to pay related royalty fees. Until now, three First Instance favourable decisions have been issued, in which the Courts have prohibited the defendants from distributing the infringing products and have ordered them to pay substantial amount of damages, unprecedented for Greek standards. Two of these decisions have become legally binding whereas the appeal filed by the Greek company against the third decision has been

rejected. Finally, two of the defendants have been forced to sign settlement agreements.

• Other cases, include a long stream of litigations on behalf of two major pharmaceutical companies concerning patent

infringement against

manufacturers of pharmaceutical generics.

In this respect, we filed petitions

for injunction, main infringement actions and nullity actions against patents of other companies. These cases are still pending and the Courts have asked for Court expert opinions. It is worth noting that, in one case, a favourable Court expert opinion was delivered, which confirmed the novelty and inventiveness of a patent, on which our clients’ actions were based. In the context of these procedures, caselaw from past successful cases we have handled have been invoked.

Areas of Expertise • Intellectual Property

• National Trademarks / Community Trademarks / International Trademarks

• Patents / Designs / SPCs • Copyright

• Due Diligence Search & Advice / Monitoring

• Exploitation / Licensing / Franchising • Commercial / Administrative • Litigation

• Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADRP) / Domain Names / Information Society

• Competition & Anti-Trust Law / Advertising and Consumer Law / Contract Law

• Piracy / Anti-Counterfeiting / Customs Monitoring - Border Protection

Dr. Helen Papaconstantinou, John Filias & Associates,

is one of the largest specialist IP Firms in Greece.

Contact:

DR. HELEN PAPACONSTANTINOU, JOHN FILIAS & ASSOCIATES

2, Coumbari Street Kolonaki

Athens 106 74, Greece

Telephone: (+30-210) 3626624, 3625757 Telefax: (+30-210) 3626742, 3605873 Email: mail@hplaw.biz URL: www.hplaw.biz

Lawyer Monthly Legal Awards 2012

37