Yes, 2006 saw the death of the Dutch 'spider in the web' preliminary injunctions against IP infringement in multiple jurisdictions involving multiple infringers directed from a central infringer in the Netherlands, now much morned (at least by Dutch lawyers). Obviously there's something wrong with one jurisdiction being able to pass cross-border preliminary injunctions when other jurisdictions cannot return the favour. Obviously also there is something incongrous about Judges in one country judging on the validity of IP held in another (although people seem much happier about judges deciding the validity of say, marriages made in another country).
All the same, the most depressing thing about this whole story is that all the possible solutions (the Community patent court, the European Patent court etc.) have all been shot down in the past year as well. Helmut Kohl famously said that "What belongs together should grow together", but it is all to plain that at the moment European legislators neither believe that Europe should grow together in this area nor are they sure that it even belongs together on this matter, and that's a disapointment.
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