The Court of Appeal of Barcelona lifted a preliminary injunction on the grounds that ‘omnibus’ claims (merely a reference to the description or drawings without specifically stating any technical features) included in patents granted under the old Patent Act 1929 are not enforceable. According to the Court, the omnibus claim in dispute is not an…

On 26 April 2011, the Supreme Court handed down an interesting decision en banc declaring that a Judge who had confirmed the validity of a patent while sitting on a Court of Appeal is not prevented from reconsidering the validity of the same patent while sitting on the Supreme Court. Ratiopharm had requested the removal…

On 23 February 2011 the Administrative Chamber of the “Audiencia Nacional” handed down an interesting judgment ordering the Administration to bear the damages caused by the erroneous price reduction of EVOPAD®, a medicament marketed by JANSSEN-CILAG comprised of Galantamine. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows: The Ministry of Health reduced by…

On 2 March 2011 the Barcelona Court of Appeal handed down a judgment reversing a decision from Commercial Court n.4 of Barcelona, which rejected the patent owners’ ‘lis pendens‘ defence against a revocation action filed by L.A. and others based on lack of inventive step. In its judgment of 2 March 2011, the Court of…

On 13 December 2007, the last amendment of the European Patent convention (“EPC”) came into force. Among other aspects, the amendment introduced a new paragraph (paragraph 3) in Article 138 of the EPC, which reads as follows: “In proceedings before the competent court or authority relating to the validity of the European patent, the proprietor…

According to article 66.2 of the Patent Act, as amended after the implementation of the Enforcement Directive (Directive 2004/48/EC), in order to claim damages the patentee may chose (i) the negative economic consequences, including the profits the owner could foreseeably have earned from working the patented invention if there had been no competition from the…