HUNGARY Law and Practice Contributed by: Árpád Pethő, Levente Pethő, Eszter Szakács and József Tálas, Danubia Patent & Law Office
cessful lawsuit for a compulsory licence ensures that the licensee can use the patent, and the patentee has to receive remuneration. Compul- sory licences shall be registered in the patent register. Please note that no known compulsory licences have been issued by the courts so far, with only one case having been initiated in the past 20 years (as far as is known). An additional type of compulsory licence was enacted in 2020, in the Patent Act in connec- tion with the COVID-19 pandemic: the so- called public health compulsory licence is to be granted by the HIPO during periods declared by the government as a health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In such situations, a compulsory licence can be granted for patent- ed drugs, active ingredients or medical devices, and for patented processes or equipment for the production of such for the purpose of fulfilling domestic needs and – in a limited scope – for exportation. Detailed rules are provided in the Patent Act. Based on these rules, some com- pulsory licenses have been granted by the HIPO; however, recently, following the exhaustion of appeals, the Constitutional Court ordered that the procedure be repeated as the patent owner’s right to be heard had been violated by the proce- dure of the HIPO (Decision No 3434/2023 (X25)). 2.3 Courts With Jurisdiction The Metropolitan Tribunal of Budapest has a first-instance court for patent and utility model infringement lawsuits, as well as for preliminary injunction proceedings. The Metropolitan Appeal Court acts as second instance, and the Curia (Supreme Court) provides judicial review for questions of law. For revocation actions, the first-instance author- ity is the HIPO, and any appeals against its deci- sions are dealt with by the Metropolitan Tribunal
acting as first judicial instance. The Metropolitan Appeal Court acts as second judicial instance, and the Curia provides judicial review. This ensures four instances for revocation (the HIPO preceding three judicial instances) but only three for infringement. Also, it means that patent litigation is bifurcated in Hungary, and infringe- ments and revocations are assessed indepen- dently in separate proceedings. However, the defendant in a patent infringement lawsuit may also choose to challenge the valid- ity of a patent directly in the form of a counter- claim. In this case, the revocation action is one instance shorter: the level of the HIPO proceed- ing is skipped and the proceeding starts direct- ly before the Metropolitan Tribunal in a unified infringement revocation proceeding. Lawsuits related to ownership, licensing or remuneration, including any dispute arising from contracts involving patents, belong to one of the tribunals of Hungary (courts acting in the central town of each county), depending primarily on the address of the defendant. 2.4 Specialised Bodies/Organisations for the Resolution of Disputes As a specialised authority, the HIPO acts in rev- ocation and non-infringement actions. There is no specialised court for patent litigation (patent infringement, compulsory licensing, judicial level of revocation), although the Metropolitan Tribu- nal has exclusive competence for these cases and there are designated senates at each judicial level that handle all IP rights cases; these can therefore be regarded as specialised senates. 2.5 Prerequisites to Filing a Lawsuit There are no prerequisites to filing a lawsuit for patent infringement. However, according to the
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