Amendments, Chemical Engineering, Extension of subject matter, Extent of Protection, France, Scope of protection

(Véron & Associés)/

Syngenta Limited (hereinafter referred to as “Syngenta”), a company governed by the laws of England and Wales, is the holder of European patent No. 0 382 375 entitled “Fungicides”. On 28 September 2009, it submitted to the Institut national de la propriété industrielle (INPI; French Industrial Property Office) a request for limitation of a claim of the French designation of…

Biologics, Exceptions to patentability, United States of America

(Foley&Lardner LLP)/

On April 15, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in one of the most controversial and publicized biotech patent cases, the “ACLU/Myriad” gene patenting case (formally, The Association For Molecular Pathology, et al. v. USPTO et al.). While it is nearly impossible to predict the outcome of a Supreme Court case from…

(Indirect) infringement, Germany, Injunction

(Rospatt Osten Pross)/

The German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) addressed some interesting questions on patents protecting methods relating to data in the decision “MPEG-2-Videosignalcodierung” (“MPEG-2 video signal encoding”), judgement of 21 August 2012, X ZR 33/10. This all was round up by explanations on patent exhaustion in the context of test purchases. In simple terms, the…

Enforcement, Germany, Injunction, Inventive step, Novelty, Validity

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

In its “Leflunomid” decision of 24 July 2012 (Case X ZR 126/09), the FCJ declared a patent claim to be invalid which covered a combination of leflunomide and teriflunomide, on the grounds that it had long been known in the prior art (for 100 years) that some leflunomide spontaneously and unavoidably converts teriflunomide over time…

(Compulsory) license, Enforcement, Injunction, Switzerland

(MLL Legal Ltd.)/

In a recent decision (case no. 4A_443/2012) the Swiss Federal Supreme Court had to deal with a dispute between the German Robert Bosch GmbH, which filed suit against the Swiss Federal Confederation based on the Swiss portion of EP 0 741 373. The decision exclusively focuses on the question whether the Swiss Federal Patent Court has jurisdiction…

(Indirect) infringement, Antibodies, Inventive step, Novelty, Pharma, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/ /1 Comment

In our post on 30 October 2012 we referred to forthcoming appeals dealing with how the question of obviousness should be tackled by the English courts. The Court of Appeal has now given its verdict in several judgments. The latest decision in Regeneron v Genentech dealt not only with the question of obviousness but also…

(Compulsory) license, European Union, Germany

(Rospatt Osten Pross)/

by Hetti Hilge The District Court Duesseldorf stayed a case between Huawei and ZTE concerning mobile and base stations within the LTE standard and referred five question to the CJEU (docket No. 4b O 104/12). The court wants to clarify under what circumstances an infringement court has to consider a compulsory license defense in a…

(Compulsory) license, European Union, Germany

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

The Regional Court Dusseldorf submitted on 21 March 2013 a referral to the CJEU with five questions regarding the interpretation of Art. 102 TFEU relating to the antitrust objection of compulsory license in patent infringement actions. The patent infringement action at issue is concerned with a LTE-standard-essential patent. The plaintiff declared its readiness via the…

Case Law, France, Procedure

(Pinsent Masons)/

The Paris Court of Appeal clarified the interest of a potential competitor to seek the revocation of a patent. It was particularly unclear whether any competitor, current or potential, could have a legitimate interest in the form of a “clear the path” approach. However, in this case the Court held that Omnipharm had no legitimate…