Sighs of relief… sighs of disappointment… Depending on your position towards the unitary patent package, one of the aforementioned sighs was heaved on Tuesday, when the CJEU dismissed the annulment actions of Spain against the Council Regulation 1257/2012 (“Unitary Patent Regulation”) and Council Regulation 1260/2012 (“Translation Regulation”) of the so-called unitary patent package. Irrespective of…

The European Court of Justice (CJEU) has just rejected Spain’s challenge of the Regulations No 1260/2012 and No 1257/2012. The eagerly awaited decision in the cases C-146/13 and C-147/13, implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection, means an important obstacle for the creation of the Unified Patent Court and the Unitary…

In September of 2013, the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office (“SPTO”) published a draft Patents Act aimed at modernising the old Act 11/1986, of 20 March, on Patents, which is close to celebrating its 30th anniversary. After hearing the stakeholders concerned, on 11 April 2014 the Council of Ministers approved the draft and sent it…

On 12 March 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) published the judgment announced in our last blog in Case C-577/13, in response to some of the preliminary questions referred by the High Court of Justice (England and Wales), Chancery Division (Patents Court) in a case between Actavis Group EHF, Actavis UK…

 By Rechtsanwalt Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna, LL.M., Certified Specialist for Intellectual Property Law, Düsseldorf. This article reflects the personal opinion of the author. On 18 November 2014 Advocate General Yves Bot delivered his Statements of Position (afterwards “Opinions”) in terms of Spain’s nullity actions against the two Regulations on the “unitary patent”, his recommendation to the CJEU…

Many readers, particularly those based on one of the islands to the Northwest of the Canal de La Manche, will remember the famous metaphor used by then Justice Robin Jacob in his Decision of 23 October de 2001 (paroxetine): “The defendants could, so soon as they settled upon the product they were intending to sell,…

1. Introduction: Over the last decade, in some of the countries that did not introduce patent protection for pharmaceutical products until 1992, there has been an intense debate which has included, inter alia, the following two questions: (i) whether or not under Articles 70.2 and 27.1 of TRIPS, a patent granted following an application claiming…