(Cross-border) jurisdiction, (Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Enforcement, Injunction, Inventive step, Netherlands

(Brinkhof)/

The PI judge in the District Court of The Hague held that under certain circumstances, provisional cross-border jurisdiction can be derived from art. 31 Regulation (EC) 44/2001, which would require a “real connecting link” between the sought measures and the jurisdiction of a contracting state (ECJ C-391/95, Van Uden/Decoline). However, in the present case there…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Equivalents, Extent of Protection, Netherlands

(Brinkhof)/

The PI judge in the District Court of The Hague held that the processes used to manufacture the generic products in dispute did not fall within the invoked patents’ scope of protection, and particularly that these did not comprise equivalent measures, because the allegedly equivalent substances had significantly different chemical compositions and functionality. Finding the…

Case Law, Damages, Enforcement, Netherlands, Procedure, Revocation

(Brinkhof)/

The Court of Appeal held that the duty to compensate the successful party’s legal costs in intellectual property proceedings, pursuant to Art. 14 of the Enforcement directive, also applies to invalidity claims, counterclaims and defenses by the alleged infringing party threatened with patent enforcement. To deny such compensation in respect of nullity claims or defenses…

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, Case Law, Disclaimer, Netherlands, Scope of protection

(Brinkhof)/

The Court decided it has jurisdiction in preliminary proceedings in respect of the alleged unlawful act by a Dutch company, consisting of facilitating – as the holder of a marketing authorization – its Portuguese fellow subsidiary to infringe the Portuguese part of a European patent and corresponding SPC in Portugal, based on Article 31 EC…

(Cross-border) jurisdiction, (Indirect) infringement, Case Law, European Union, Procedure

(Brinkhof)/

The Court of Justice ruled that claims against different companies located in different Member States marketing the same product regarding infringement of a a European patent in one jurisdiction were so closely connected that they may be decided jointly to prevent irreconcilable judgments in the sense of Art. 6(1) EC 44/2001. In the present circumstances,…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Netherlands, Pharma, Procedure, Second Medical Use

(Brinkhof)/

Regarding the interpretation of “offering for the purpose” (of making, using etc.) in the sense of Article 53(1)(b) Dutch Patent Act, the Supreme Court held that offering has to be construed broadly and is not restricted to offering for sale. The defendant submitted its generic product for listing in G-Standaard, the database for medicinal products…

Biologics, Case Law, Equivalents, Extent of Protection, Netherlands

(Brinkhof)/

The Dutch Supreme Court held that Art. 69 EPC in conjunction with art. 1 Protocol for the application of Art. 69 EPC provides a guideline for the determination of the scope of protection. Other “viewpoints” are the essence of the invention and the inventive idea behind the wording of the claims as opposed to the…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Inventive step, Netherlands

(Brinkhof)/

The Court of Appeal confirms the revocation by the District Court of a patent relating to a coformulation of timolol and dorzolamide for the treatment of glaucoma , for lack of inventive step. The combination of these two substances was disclosed before the priority date as a concomitant therapy. The skilled person would turn this…

Case Law, European Union, Procedure, SPC

(Brinkhof)/

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Article 13 of the old SPC Regulation (EEC 1768/92, identical to article 13 of the “new” SPC Regulation (EC469/2009) in conjunction with Article 36 of the Pediatric Regulation (EC 1901/2006), allow for the grant of an SPC of negative duration. The additional term provided by…