Commentary Tjeerd Overdijk on decision in patent dispute Rovi v. Ziggo

On 25 June 2013 the Hague Court of Appeal gave a ruling on the validity of a software patent of U.S. based Rovi Coroporation. The patent involved a computer-implemented invention which claimed a system for providing brief on-screen programme information on television programmes with the help of so-called overlay screens. The Court of Appeal ruled that the matter claimed in the patent was not sufficiently tecnical to support that the claimed invention involved an inventive step. For that reason the Court of Appeal confirmed the first instance ruling in which the patent was declared null and void. At the request of the Dutch computer law review Computerrecht Tjeerd Overdijk wrote a legal commentary on the decision (in Dutch only).