One of the actors that has been seeking to pop-up in the European patent theatre in recent decades is plausibility. As readers will be aware, the debate around plausibility initially arose at the European Patent Office in the mid-1990s (T 939/92, AgrEvo) at a time when applications with extremely broad claims were in vogue, particularly…
A recently published Decision of 9 November 2018 from Barcelona Commercial Court number 5 sheds some light on the indicia that may or may not be sufficient for the purposes of ordering a preliminary injunction “ex parte”. For the readers’ benefit, it will be useful to clarify that under Spanish law, one of the requirements…
On 12 February 2019, the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) issued an interesting judgment clarifying the role played by “drawings” for the purpose of interpreting the scope of protection of a patent. This judgment has reversed a judgment of 12 December 2017 from Barcelona Commercial Court number 1 which, according to the Court of…
One has to have a lot of courage to accept the task of coordinating a book on Supplementary Protection Certificates (“SPCs”). The immense variety of the facts discussed in the numerous cases that have historically sparked the need for preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) on the interpretation of…
During the 2018 Mobile World Congress (“MWC”), Barcelona Commercial Court number 1 ordered a preliminary injunction preventing a company that was taking part in the Congress from continuing to market mobile phones that allegedly used antennas protected by patents owned by the applicant. The defendant lodged an appeal before the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section…
As discussed in our blog of 30 May 2018, the EU Commission has proposed an amendment to Regulation (EC) 469/2009 concerning the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products (“SPC Regulation”) aimed at introducing a “manufacturing for export exception.” The purpose of the amendment is to allow the manufacture of generic and biosimilar medicines within the…
A recent judgment of 18 December 2018 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal has partially reversed a judgment of 9 December 2016 from Barcelona Commercial Court number 4, which had rejected the locus standi of a non-exclusive licensee to file a patent infringement action. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows: A…
The Mobile Word Congress (“MWC”) is the largest mobile trade event in the world and one of the most significant trade fairs taking place in Barcelona. More than 105,000 people attended previous events and more than 2,400 leading companies exhibited their products. Due to its importance, all relevant institutions do their very best each year…
As already reported by Kluwer Patent Blog, on 5 December 2018 (case T 1063/18) the EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal 3304 found that Rule 28 (2) is contrary to article 53 of the European Patent Convention (“EPC”) and that, therefore, it does not prevent the patentability of new pepper plants and fruits with improved nutritional…
In its judgment of 25 July 2018 (Case C-121/17 Teva v. Gilead), the CJEU had its latest say on the interpretation of article 3 (a) of Regulation (EC) 469/2009 concerning the Supplemental Protection Certificates for medicinal products (the “SPC Regulation”). In particular, it concluded that article 3 (a): “[…] must be interpreted as meaning that…
