Read all the (latest) blogs from:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, EPC, Estonia, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America
1. Introduction: Over the last decade, in some of the countries that did not introduce patent protection for pharmaceutical products until 1992, there has been an intense debate which has included, inter alia, the following two questions: (i) whether or not under Articles 70.2 and 27.1 of TRIPS, a patent granted following an application claiming…
by Jan Pot and Ruprecht Hermans MSD’s European Patent for treating baldness, EP 0 724 444 (‘EP 444’), has been the subject of a number of (in)validity decisions throughout Europe, with differing outcomes. The Dutch chapter in this saga is a decision of the District Court The Hague, which holds that – contrary to the…
Appeal (Ref [2014] EWCA Civ 1335) has upheld Birss J’s decision last year in HTC v Gemalto (Ref [2013] EWHC 1876 (Pat)) but has found that he erred on a point of construction. The appeal concerned just one of the patents considered at first instance (EP (UK) 0932865) which relates to using higher level programming…
Since July 2013 when the Danish Maritime & Commercial Court (MCC) took over as IPR specialty court in Denmark for PI cases also, the technical judges have taken part in the adjudication of PI patent cases also. Although the MCC has no legal basis to render judgement declaring patents in the course of PI proceedings,…
Under the new PCT Direct initiative announced in the Official Journal, it will, from 1 November 2014, be possible to respond to objections raised by the EPO against the priority application on filing the international application. This significantly streamlines the process of applying for an international application, and essentially gives the applicant an extra opportunity in the International Phase to overcome objections already raised by the EPO against the priority application, by submitting arguments or modifications with the international application.
by Hetti Hilge In two recent and surprising decisions the Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice) clarified the effects of a first instance decision nullifying the patent in suit on the enforcement of a parallel infringement finding (including an injunction) and, upon second review, remedied what it considers an unintended oversight by the legislator (“Planwidrige…
Although more than 20 years have passed since the Enlarged Board of Appeal issued its decision G 1/92, there is still little case law which provides guidance on how to establish the structure and properties of a particular medicament in a manner so as to be able to rely on the same as a piece…
In September of 2013 the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (“SPTO”) published a draft Patents Act, which will hopefully be approved by Parliament within the next few months, assuming that the election calendar so permits. During the last year, the draft has received numerous comments from the stakeholders concerned, including the Spanish competition authorities and…
The English Patents Court (Birss J) recently demonstrated a somewhat unconventional approach to answering the statutory question of obviousness when assessing inventive step*. The judgment also provides some guidance on the role of commercial as opposed to technical considerations, in particular regulatory concerns, when assessing obviousness. Leo Pharma, the defendant in these proceedings, market a…
