Year: 2019

Antibodies, Case Law, European Union, Litigation, Novelty, Patents, Pharma, Pharmaceutical patent, Prior art, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/

Among the flurry of pre-summer vacation judgments coming from the Patents Court is one from Mr Justice Birss (17 July 2019), concerning the validity of Hoffman-La Roche’s patent EP (UK) 2 007 809. EP’809 is a formulation patent for the monoclonal antibody vedolizumab, marketed as Entyvio® and used to treat ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease….

Case Law, Netherlands

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /1 Comment

The scope of a patent is to be interpreted according to Art. 69 EPC and the Protocol. If the literal text is limiting, the question is how the skilled person would understand this limitation. If the limiting wording is due to a technical consideration, the limitation may be considered differently from when the limitation can…

EPC, EPO Decision, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Patents, Spain

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /2 Comments

One of the worst nightmares or, in a few cases, real events in a patent professional’s life is when he/she realizes that an important term has inadvertently been missed and the usual means of term extension are no longer available. What then? Will the hardship of the applicable European or national statute inevitably hit you?…

Patents

(Clifford Chance)/

One of the principles inherited from Roman law is that “venire contra factum propium non valet“. In civil law countries such as Spain, this principle is normally labelled as the “doctrine that prohibits acting against one’s own acts” (prohibición de actuar contra los propios actos).  In common law countries, the principle is normally associated with…

Case Law, Netherlands, Public prior use

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

A patent that is limited during the course of the proceedings (even after the pleadings) is held to have been so limited ab initio if the limitation is duly registered. When a European patent is granted and validated, an existing national patent loses its effect only for the invention claimed in the European patent. The…

Case Law, Netherlands

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

The Court held that a selection invention is inventive if the compound of the selection offers surprisingly advantageous or improved properties over the prior art compounds. These properties should already be plausible from the patent application as filed. Further, a selection invention would be obvious to the skilled person if they would assume a neutral…