One of the most disputed topics within the patent community is whether or not the patent prosecution history should be taken into account when interpreting the scope of protection of the claims. Whereas U.S. Courts have traditionally accepted the so-called “file-wrapper estoppel” or “patent prosecution estoppel” defence, the answer on this side of the Atlantic…
On 1 March 2010, Commercial Court number 1 of Pamplona handed down a judgement dismissing a declaratory non-infringement action filed by L.C. against N. The Court rejected the claim in its entirety, on the ground that L.C. lacked “locus standi”, as it was not L.C. but a third party who was supposedly to carry out…
In this case the Commercial Court lifts an ex parte preliminary injunction against the launch of several generics of Pramipexol after an inter partes hearing. The ex parte decision was grounded on a Supplementary Protection Certificate based on a patent granted under the 1929 Patents Act. One of the claims of the patent was construed…
The Barcelona Court of Appeal found that the process used by the defendants to obtain amlodipine was not equivalent to the process protected by the patent in suit. The Court relied on the three Catnic questions test, applied by the English Courts until 2004, to come to this conclusion that the patent was not infringed…
After a fresh analysis in light of evidence provided by the complainant, the Barcelona Court of Appeal confirmed the novelty of Calcium Atorvastatin, as it had done in earlier judgments of 2007 and 2008. In addition, this is the first judgment in which the Court confirmed the inventive activity of this product. For its analysis…
The Commercial Court Number 4 of Barcelona found that although obtaining the price for generic versions of Calcium Atorvastatin by two Spanish companies from the Ministry of Health is not an act of infringement as such, the acts carried out by the defendants constituted a threat of infringement that justified a prohibition to enter the…
In this judgment the Barcelona Court of Appeal concluded that any ‘preparatory acts’ (for example, submitting samples) conducted prior to the introduction in Spain of the ‘Bolar Clause’, as required by Directive 2004/27, would have been already excluded from the realm of patent infringement by the Experimental Use Exception. The Court rejected a request to…
On 30 July 2009, the Commercial Court of Granada ordered an ex parte preliminary injunction against two companies that had obtained authorisation to market generics of sustained-release pharmaceutical compositions of Fluvastatin in Spain. Interestingly, on 27 April 2009, Commercial Court number 3 of Madrid had rejected a request for a preliminary injunction against other companies…
The Barcelona Court of Appeal confirmed a preliminary injunction ordered by Commercial Court number 4 of Barcelona on 9 June 2008 preventing the launch of several generics of Atorvastatin. One of the main arguments raised by the defendants in their appeal was that the company that had filed the application for a preliminary injunction did…
The Provincial Court of Barcelona dismissed an appeal filed against a judgment from the Commercial Court number 4 of Barcelona, which had concluded that the product claims of the patent in suit were valid and enforceable in Spain under Articles 27.1 and 70.7 of TRIPS. The main interest of the judgment lies in the fact…
