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Added matter, Inventive step, Novelty, Pharma, Priority right, Public prior use, Revocation, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/ /5 Comments

by Rachel Mumby Bexsero, the Meningitis B vaccine marketed by GSK, has been the subject of many newspaper headlines in the UK over the last year, with parents seeking to persuade the UK Government to offer the vaccine to all children under the age of 11 as a matter of routine. Few will have been…

Scope of protection, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

In a recent judgment of 2 February 2016, the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) was called on to interpret the scope of protection of what are known as “product-by-process” claims. One of the issues discussed by the parties was whether the scope of protection of claim 1 of patent EP 731.646 B1, which claims…

Germany

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

Let’s begin with the German statute and compare it with the EPC. Section 34 of the German Patent Act (GPA) stipulates the following: (3) An application shall contain: 1. the name of the applicant; 2. a request for the grant of a patent, in which the invention shall be clearly and concisely designated; 3. one…

Case Law, Sweden

(World Trade Institute)/

In February 2014, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. (“MSD”) brought proceedings against Paranova Läkemedel AB (“Paranova”), alleging that Paranova was violating MSD’s right as an exclusive licensee of the European patent EP 0 595 935 (“EP 935”) by taking preparatory measures for parallel importation. MSD applied for a permanent injunction and corrective measures as well…

United States of America

and (Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US)/

Substantial evidence supported the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s finding that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine three prior art references to obtain methods for using a smart phone to control other devices, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled (In re Rhoads, May 4, 2016, Clevenger, R.)….

European Union, Unitary Patent, UPC

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The recruitment of legally and technically qualified judges of the Unified Patent Court has started. Vacancy notices for the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal in English, French, and German were published on 9 May 2016. As is explained in the vacancy notice, an Advisory Committee (comprising ‘patent judges and practitioners in patent law and…

United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

by Steven Willis Judgments from the Courts of England and Wales concerned with the construction of patents will invariably cite the classic formulation of Lord Diplock from Catnic Components v Hill & Smith Ltd [1982] R.P.C. when addressing the identity of the person skilled in the art: “…a patent specification is a unilateral statement by…