The Court of Appeal confirms the revocation by the District Court of a patent relating to a coformulation of timolol and dorzolamide for the treatment of glaucoma , for lack of inventive step. The combination of these two substances was disclosed before the priority date as a concomitant therapy. The skilled person would turn this…

Mr X was ordered to pay damages for the infringement of a French patent No. 87‑03865, relating to a massage device, by a decision of the Cour d’Appel of Limoges on 10 September 2001. In the absence of an appeal on a point of law, this decision became irrevocable. However, in a separate action, the same patent was subsequently…

Litigation and EPO Oppositions/Appeals surrounding a controlled-release dosage form of the drug oxycodone, a morphine-like opioid analgesic developed in 1918, has kept Europe’s Pharma IP Lawyers busy for a couple of years. One of the key EP patents in this battle has been EP 722 730, and almost everything about this patent is out of…

The Swiss company Bobst (hereinafter referred to as “Bobst”) is the holder of European patent No. 1 170 228 relating to a “device for controlling the means for feeding sheets in a machine”. After having had a saisie-contrefaçon carried out on 17 December 2007 in Fellmann Cartonnages’ premises in Soultz, in Haut Rhin (French administrative division), Bobst served a summons…

Contrary to the decision of the Opposition Division issued two weeks later, the District Court of The Hague held Novozymes’ patent to be novel and inventive. It also held the patent indirectly infringed. The court held that a literal disclosure of a claim feature in the prior art does not necessarily equate to a directly…

In its 2006 decision in the matter called GAT/LuK the ECJ held that Article 22-4 of the Brussels Regulation – which provides for exclusive national jurisdiction regarding the validity of patents and other registered rights – applies to all proceedings relating to the validity of a patent, irrespective of whether the issue is raised by…

To stay, or not to stay, that is the question. But not in the recent Danisco v. Novozymes case before the District Court of The Hague. On the face of the Court’s decision of 22 June 2011, the question whether to stay the national proceedings pending the outcome of opposition proceedings at the EPO on…

The District Court of The Hague revoked Glaxo’s European Patent and Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) for an inhalable combination of fluticasone and salmeterol due to lack of inventive step. This decision is put in a pan-European perspective, with reference to the UK case law on inventive step, as well as the parallel English, German and…