Patent Litigation 2025

BELGIUM Law and Practice Contributed by: Valentin de le Court, Camille De Munter and Emilie Van Heck, Osborne Clarke LLP

Belgian law explicitly provides that parties may settle patent disputes relating to owner- ship, validity or infringement, as well as to pat- ent licences (other than compulsory licences) through arbitration. Arbitration procedures are confidential and faster, but will be more costly. The traditional litigation route is, however, more commonly chosen for patent and SPC disputes, since Belgium enjoys a well-established legal system, with specialised patent judges that con- tribute to the trust placed in the judicial litigation route. 10. Assignment and Licensing 10.1 Requirements or Restrictions for Assignment of Intellectual Property Rights Under Belgian law, the assignment of patents must be done in writing to be valid. To be enforceable against third parties, the assignment must then be notified and registered with the Belgian Office for Intellectual Property. The assignment is, however, enforceable before its recordation with the Office against third par- ties who acquired rights after the assignment date but had knowledge of the assignment when they acquired these rights. In case of co-ownership, each co-owner has a pre-emption right for a period of three months as from the notification of the proposed sale, unless otherwise provided in a co-ownership agreement. The price paid for the transfer of ownership may be a lump sum or be proportionate to the exploi- tation revenues by the assignee during a certain

term. A patent assignment may be partial – eg, restricted to a specific application of the patent. Patent applications may also be assigned, in which case the same rules apply. 10.2 Procedure for Assigning an Intellectual Property Right As mentioned under 10.1 Requirements or Restrictions for Assignment of Intellectual Property Rights , Belgian law requires a written instrument for the assignment to be valid (this is a validity requirement), and the patent office must be notified and the patent assignment registered to be opposable to third parties. The notification can be easily done via forms made available by the Belgian Federal Public Service (FPS) Economy. 10.3 Requirements or Restrictions to License an Intellectual Property Right Belgian law requires patent licences (exclusive and non-exclusive) to be made in writing in order to be valid. To be opposable against third parties, the licence must then be notified and registered with the Belgian Office for Intellectual Property. Such registration is required to enable the exclu- sive licensee to enforce the licensed patents in the event of infringement or to enable exclusive and non-exclusive licensees to intervene in an infringement proceeding brought by the pat- ent owner to obtain compensation for their own losses (see 3.1 Necessary Parties to an Action for Infringement ). In the event of patent co-ownership, a co-owner may only grant a licence with the agreement of the other co-owner(s) or, in the absence of such agreement, with the authorisation of the court.

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