On 20 June 2011, Floyd J. granted a temporary restraining order preventing restraining Teva UK Limited (and two distribution companies, “Phoenix” and “AAH”) from advertising, offering for sale, selling or supplying its generic atorvastatin pending full hearing of the Warner-Lambert’s application for an interim injunction, listed for 11 July 2011. Warner-Lambert (a subsidiary of Pfizer…

The Hargreaves Review, or to refer to it by its official title, “A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth” by Professor Ian Hargreaves, was commissioned by the UK coalition government in 2010 to report on various issues pertaining to intellectual property with a particular focus on copyright, particularly in the online environment, as well as…

As previously discussed, the English Court of Appeal has clearly stated its support for judicial collaboration facilitating de facto harmonisation of patent law in Europe (Grimme Landmaschinenfabrik GmbH v Scott [2010] EWCA Civ 1110). However, in a recent decision in the English Patents Court (Lundbeck v Norpharma and Infosint [2011] EWHC 907), Floyd J. expressed…

In a judgment dated 17 March 2011 reported at [2011] EWHC 583 (Pat), the English High Court has upheld certain claims of two patents (deriving from the same ultimate parent application) for the formulation of Ethinylestradiol (“EE”) and Drospirenone (“DSP”) used in contraception. The patents in issue belonged to Bayer Schering Pharma AG. The Hungarian…

In the recent case of Schütz v Werit, the Court of Appeal examined the boundary between repair and making under the English implementation of Article 25 of the Community Patent Convention. The claimants’ patent in question was for intermediate bulk containers (IBCs), in particular IBCs comprising two parts: a cage and a large plastic container…

On 10 March, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) issued its long-awaited opinion on the patentability of human embryonic stem cells in Brüstle v Greenpeace C-34/10. Biotechnological inventions are subject to Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (the “Directive”). Article 6(1)…

Summary judgment decisions are unusual in patent cases in the UK. The court will generally only be prepared to determine a claim for patent infringement in very clear cases which do not require oral evidence to be heard. In order to succeed on an application for summary judgment, the applicant must demonstrate that the respondent…

Certain patent attorneys (patent attorney litigators) have the right to conduct intellectual property litigation in England and Wales, being “any matter relating to the protection of any invention, design, technical information, or trade mark, or similar rights, or as to any matter involving passing off or any matter ancillary thereto” (from the Higher Court Regulations…