The combination of two well-known high blood pressure medicines did not result in unexpected patient benefits. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board denying as obvious over prior art an application to patent a method of co-administering two well-known antihypertensive agents to…

In a technically complex infringement case, Barcelona Commercial Court no. 1 establishes ad hoc procedural rules for quantification of damages at the enforcement stage. This sheds light on the procedure applicable to follow-on damage quantification proceedings, which are a critical element of enforcement strategy. As such, this case has caught the attention of Spanish patent…

On January 26, 2023, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., who sought to invalidate Amgen Inc.’s Japanese patent (JP5705288) covering an isolated monoclonal antibody used as cholesterol medication, won an appeal case in the IP High Court (Case No. 2021 (Gyo-ke) 10093). What was surprising in this case was that the IP High Court’s invalidity conclusion was the…

On 4 May 2023, a mere two weeks after the conclusion of the hearing, the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in Sandoz and Teva v BMS. The appeal decision is centred on the question of plausibility and comes hot on the heels of the Enlarged Board of Appeal’s decision in G 2/21. Indeed,…

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err by declining to consider a patentee’s claim construction arguments raised for the first time at oral argument. The holder of a patent for retail point-of-sale of cards allowing a purchaser to download specified content from the internet was not entitled to reversal of a PTAB…

Brazilian courts and the patent office (BRPTO) are evolving in the evaluation of process claims. Key decisions on both forums are showing how effective those claims can be to protect products in the country. BRPTO’s Rule #124/2013 (items 3.60 and 3.61) and Rule #169/2016 (item 4.17) set forth that product-by-process claims are allowable as long…

In the next chapter in the FRAND-related battle between Nokia and Oppo, Nokia tried to obtain an injunction in relation to Oppo’s sales through Oleading and Reflection. The provisions judge, however, found this case to be too complex, both because of the patented subject-matter and the FRAND issues, to be decided in the present preliminary…

On 21 March 2023, Meade J gave a bumper judgment in the revocation action brought by Gilead in respect of two of NuCana’s patents from the same family (EP (UK) 2 955 190 and EP (UK) 3 904 365, the “Patents”), which relate to nucleoside analogues.   Filling 102 pages, the judgment raises a number of…

The concept of plausibility has caused great controversy in European patent law in recent years. It was hoped that the decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO in G 2/21 would bring clarity. Since the referral questions by Board 3.3.02 were very clear and seemed to present reasonable alternatives from which…