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The fees of the EPO will shortly be increased by about 5%. The EPO compensates the fees for inflation each two years; the period of two years is a compromise between frequent compensation for inflation and administrative effort of such a fee change. The increased amounts will apply to payments made on or after 1…
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…
In its decision “Okklusionsvorrichtung” (Aga v. Occlutech), the Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) denied patent infringement by equivalent means since the contested infringing embodiment was disclosed in the description as an alternative to the claimed one. This decision was followed in the decision “Diglycidverbindung”. In a nutshell, the FCJ, in continuation of its decisions “Schneidmesser…
Multiple rulings of the CJEU on the SPC Regulation fail to answer questions posed by the national courts, result in greater confusion and give rise to a need for yet more references. Introduction In Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd v Medimmune Ltd & Anor [2012] EWHC 181, Mr Justice Arnold was required to apply the recent…
In my blog of 10 June 2011 I had reported about the decision by the Landgericht Duesseldorf “Pramipexol” (4a O 277/10) where the Court of first Instance had granted a PI based on an anonymous confirmation by a research institute. This decision has been reversed by the Court of Appeals (I-2 U 22/11). The Court…
On 10 February 2012 the Spanish Court handed down a judgment where it accepted for the first time the concept of a “springboard” injunction as a remedy aimed at curing acts of infringement carried out before a patent expires. The background to the case may be summarised as follows: A manufacturer of generic drugs filed…
Laboratoires Negma (hereinafter referred to as “Negma”) is the exclusive licensee of European patent No. 0 520 414 which relates to a method for the preparation of diacetylrhein (also called diacerein) having a specific degree of purity as well as diacetylrhein obtained by this process and a pharmaceutical composition containing this compound. Such European patent was first filed…
In the mid-1990s, the U.S. joined most of the rest of the world by adopting a 20-year patent term for patent applications filed on or after June 5, 1995. However, the U.S. patent system is unique in that patents can obtain term adjustments to compensate for certain delays that occur during patent prosecution. The relevant…
By decision of 11 January 2012 Pfizer was found liable of abuse of dominant position by the Italian Antitrust Authority and ordered to pay 10.6 million euro. My previous posts on this case can be found here, here and here. In substance AGCM (the Italian antitrust Authority) has now decided that Pfizer abused its dominant…
On 20 January 2012 the Court of Appeal in England heard the case of Apimed Medical Honey v Brightwake Limited [2012] EWCA Civ 5. Apimed owned European Patent (UK) 1,237,561 (‘the Patent’) for an invention of “Medical dressings comprising gelled honey” and this was held invalid for obviousness at first instance in the Patent’s County…
