Court Small Claims

Officiating in the County Court is a Circuit judge or a Registrar (a solicitor) for small claims and interlocutory (pre-trial) matters. A Circuit judge, who may also sit in the Crown Court, must be a barrister (at present) of at least 10 years standing or Recorder (see below) of five years experience. 

Given that the consumer has not been deprived of his rights of action, he may find, if the other party is not prepared to settle, that his only method of getting justice is to go to court. Up until 1973, this could be a daunting and expensive business. But in that year, a small claims or arbitration procedure was set up which operated through the County Court. Any claim within the County Court jurisdiction (up to 5000) may be referred on application to... 

The lowest court in civil law is the County Court which only deals with minor cases (for compensation claims of up to 50 000 if the High Court agrees). Cases are normally heard by a judge sitting alone. For personal injury claims of less than 5000, a small claims court is also available. 

The civil court system comprises the County Court and High Court. Given that civil law is to provide compensation for loss, the county court deals with minor compensation claims of up to 50000. This system is also supported by the small claims court for claims for compensation less than 5000. 

Unit trains can pose problems to small manufacturers who do not have the volume to use them. This effectively gives the big producer a price advantage this is frowned upon in Washington. In 1969 the Dow Chemical Company, which was using unit trains to deliver coal from West Virginia to Midland, Michigan, was accused of violating railroad tariff rate. It was claimed Dow paid less than published tariff rates. In an out-of-court settlement Dow paid 350,000 in claims. ... 

Pfizer won at the district court level, but lost on appeal at the Federal Circuit, in part because Claim 6 was not written in proper form [11]. This case presents an excellent example of the "reach through" effect how small actions early on in the patent process can have large consequences in litigation. 

The story of the 331 patent is complex. It claims priority back to an original application filed in 1993, seven years before its issuance. The majority of the claims in the patent cover taxol substantially free of cremophor, the solvent used for dissolving and administering the FDA-approved version of taxol. Hence, these claims do not cover the approved version of taxol and caimot support listing. However, a small number of broad claims recite a vessel containing a specified amount of a taxol ranging from 33 mg to 3000 mg. These claims arguably cover, for instance, a bag for intravenous administration of taxol as approved by the FDA, but a district court has also invalidated the claims based on this interpretation. ... 

From a procedural standpoint, unfavorable patent decisions by USPTO examiners (e.g., rejected patent claims/applications) can be appealed to the U.S. Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (the Board). If the outcome at the Board is unfavorable to the applicant then the applicant may appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit (CAFC). Unfavorable decisions from the CAFC may be further appealed by petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.6 While patent appeals from the Board to the CACF may be made as a matter of right, appeals from the CAFC to the Supreme Court are not. Due to the Supreme Court s broad jurisdiction and very limited capacity to hear cases, only a very small percent of cases that are appealed (approximately 1%) are heard (so good luck ).7 Patent litigation on the other hand involves the enforcement of patents that have already... 

The greatest impediment to understanding the effects of product liability on the drug R D process is the lack of evidence on trends in pharmaceutical liability cases. Data on court cases are limited because the legal system adjudicates only a small fraction of all product liability claims and because there is no... 

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