UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Paolo Palmigiano, Rachael Roberts, Helen Farr, Debbie Heywood and Louise Popple, Taylor Wessing LLP
duction or distribution, or promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers a fair share of the resulting benefits. However, these agreements must not: • impose restrictions that are not indispensable to the attainment of these objectives; or • afford the undertakings concerned the pos - sibility of eliminating competition in respect of a substantial part of the products in question. If an agreement is investigated, the CMA can impose fines on undertakings that violate the prohibition of up to a maximum of 10% of their worldwide turnover. 6.4 Abuse of Dominant Position Chapter 2 of the Competition Act 1998 prohibits any conduct by one or more undertakings that amounts to the abuse of a dominant position in a market within the UK, and partially prohibits it if it may affect trade within the UK. An undertaking is considered dominant if it can act independently of competitive pressures, such as setting prices, controlling supply or hindering competitors’ ability to operate in the market. There is a rebuttable presumption of dominance if an undertaking has a share of the relevant market of more than 50%, and CMA guidance confirms that less than a 40% share is unlikely to create dominance. Examples of abuse are set out in Section 18 (2) of the Act and include the following: • directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices, or other unfair trading condi - tions; • limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;
• applying dissimilar conditions to equiva - lent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disad - vantage; and • making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of sup - plementary obligations that, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no con - nection with the subject of such contracts. If it can be shown that the behaviour is objec - tively justified, it will not be abusive even if com - petition is restricted. It is for the dominant under - taking to prove the justification. If conduct is investigated, the CMA can impose fines on dominant undertakings of up to a maxi - mum of 10% of their worldwide turnover. Patents are exclusivity rights that protect prod - ucts and processes of a technical nature. The subject matter of protection must be novel and inventive, and must satisfy several other statu- tory requirements, for the patent to be valid. Patents last 20 years, but protection may be extended in the case of a medicinal product by up to a further five years by a supplementary protection certificate. Patents are normally regis - tered in national patent offices once granted, but the new unitary patent (which has pan-European protection for 18 countries rather than a single country) is registered at the European Patent Office. Depending on the nature of the patent, it may be enforced in infringement proceedings in the national courts or the Unified Patent Court. Remedies for infringement typically include damages and injunction. 7. Intellectual Property 7.1 Patents
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