The spider in the web doctrine is a

legal doctrine A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, Procedural law, procedural steps, or Test (law), test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. For example, a doctrine ...

Dutch patent law Patent law in the Netherlands, or simply Dutch patent law, is mainly governed by the ''Kingdom Patents Act'' () and the European Patent Convention. A patent covering the Netherlands can be obtained through three different routes: through the direct ...

governing cross-border injunctions in

patent infringement A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

cases. Under this doctrine, the Dutch courts would assume

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...

only in cases where the main

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one juris ...

(the "spider") was located in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and where the other defendants were part of a group of companies and acted based on a common business policy of this group (the "web"), regardless of the nation in which the disputed

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

was issued. Decisions by the

European Court of Justice The European Court of Justice (ECJ), officially the Court of Justice (), is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting ...

(ECJ) have cast some doubt on the continuing validity of this doctrine. This is due in part to the fact that the ECJ did not feel that Dutch courts were competent to make predictions or judgments about the validity of patents granted outside the Netherlands, preferring to grant jurisdiction to the countries in which the patent was granted.''Dutch cross-border injunctions after Gat v. Luk''
E-newsletter Patent Law, Number 4, 22 December 2006,

Nauta Dutilh NautaDutilh, an independent law firm practicing Dutch, Belgian, and Luxembourg law. NautaDutilh is one of the largest law firms in Europe, with over 400 lawyers, civil law notaries, and tax advisers in offices in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Luxe ...

web site.

See also

References

Further reading