The Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) has been asked to consider whether the draft agreement for the proposed European Patent Litigation System is compatible with the European Union treaties. On 2 July 2010, Advocate General Kokott provided an opinion (which has only recently been made publicly available) advising the CJEU to find…
The General Court upheld, for the most part, the decision of the European Commission in AstraZeneca. The Court held that AstraZeneca infringed Article 82 EC (prohibition of abuse of a dominant market position) in so far as AstraZeneca requested the registration of Losec capsules market authorisations in Norway and Denmark. The Court further held that…
The European Court of Justice held that Article 9 of the Biotech Directive (98/44/EC) does not confer patent protection to genetic information that does not (anymore) perform its function for which it is patented (in the case at hand the DNA present in soy meal). In addition, the Court held that Article 9 Directive provides…
In May 2010, in HTC Corporation v Yozmot 33 Ltd [2010] EWHC 1057 (Pat), the English High Court (Arnold J.) confirmed that it is in principle legitimate for a party to seek a judgment of the English Court on the validity of a UK designation of a European patent in the hope that the judgment…
The grant of supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) has been the subject of numerous recent cases in Europe. In the UK, the latest development in Neurim Pharmaceuticals (1991) Limited v. Comptroller-General of Patents [2010] EWHC 976 (Pat) concerned the issue of whether a previously authorised product can be the subject of an SPC for a different…
There have been some interesting developments lately on the international IP piracy front relating to the so-called manufacturing fiction and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). These will also have an impact on patent cases. I will summarize the main points.
According to the Advocate General Article 9 of the Biotechnology Directive does not limit the scope of protection of patents for biotechnology inventions. Nonetheless protection for DNA sequences as such is excluded.
In its decision rendered on 19 March 2008 the District Court of The Hague referred questions to the European Court of Justice on the interpretation of article 9 of Directive 98/44/EC 0f the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (“Biotechnology Directive”). In particular the Dutch court wished to know whether article 9 of the Biotechnology Directive should be interpreted as extending the rights conferred by a patent covering a biotechnological invention, or, on the contrary, whether it should be interpreted to limit the proprietor’s right to prevent the exploitation of material containing the patented product (DNA sequence), on the condition that such product still performs its function. The Advocate General in his opinion comes to the conclusion that it is irrefutable that article 9 of the Biotechnology Directive is a rule for the extension of patent protection. However, in his opinion the system put in place by the Biotechnology Directive excludes protection for DNA sequences as such. Such protection is limited “to the situations in which the genetic information is currently performing the functions described in the patent.” But how does this relate to the obligations under the European Patent Convention (EPC)?
On any view, the world of international patents is fast-paced and constantly changing in shape. Barely a week goes by without an important development from a major national Court or the EPO in a significant area such as the allowability of claims to pharmaceutical dosage regimes or the patentability of computer software. The Patents Courts…
The European Court of Justice held that Article 3(c) of EEC Directive no. 1768/92, in light of Article 3(2) of EC Directive no. 1610/96, does not oppose the granting of an SPC to the holder of a basic patent for a product for which, at the moment of filing the application for the SPC, one…
