The extent or scope of the protection conferred by a European patent or a European patent application shall – cf. Article 69 European Patent Convention – be determined by the claims. Nevertheless, the description and drawings shall be used to interpret the claims.
In this case the Commercial Court lifts an ex parte preliminary injunction against the launch of several generics of Pramipexol after an inter partes hearing. The ex parte decision was grounded on a Supplementary Protection Certificate based on a patent granted under the 1929 Patents Act. One of the claims of the patent was construed…
The Court of Appeal has overturned a decision of the High Court in finding Virgin’s patent for an aircraft seating system to be valid and infringed. The Court of Appeal’s judgment is of particular interest as it concerns the skilled person and general principles of claim construction. According to the Court of Appeal, the skilled…
The Antwerp Commercial Court dismissed Merck’s claim for injunctive relief against Teva, ruling that Teva’s montelukast-based generic medicines do not infringe Merck’s European patent (EP 0 737 186) with respect to an improved process for preparation of the active ingredient montelukast, either literally or by equivalents. A full summary of this case has been published…
In this judgment the Barcelona Court of Appeal concluded that any ‘preparatory acts’ (for example, submitting samples) conducted prior to the introduction in Spain of the ‘Bolar Clause’, as required by Directive 2004/27, would have been already excluded from the realm of patent infringement by the Experimental Use Exception. The Court rejected a request to…
The District Court of The Hague finds that the generic products of the defendants fall under the scope of protection of both of Mundipharma’s patents, which are related to controlled release oxycodone formulations. According to the District Court, the scope of protection of the patents is not limited to products wherein all oxycodone is within…
In these infringement proceedings before the Preliminary Relief Judge of the District Court of The Hague the defendant argued that the claimants should not have received an SPC for valaciclovir, since not valaciclovir, but its parent drug aciclovir is the ‘active ingredient’ Because aciclovir is not protected by the basic patent, and the market authorization…
The Bulgarian Patent Office (BPO) revoked patent BG 61365 and published an announcement of the revocation in its official bulletin. The revocation was appealed by AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LR. The Court held the decision of the BPO invalid and annulled it as the decision was not in written form and the mere publication in the official…
The Administrative Law Division of the Council of State holds that the District Court has rightfully found that the Patent Office was not obligated to issue a Supplementary Protection Certificate for the medicinal product cetuximab. Article 73 (1) of the Dutch Patents Act 1995 on indirect infringement, does not in all circumstances protect the patentee…
The Federal Court of Justice ruled that the subject matter of a patent does not extend beyond the content of the application as filed when terms are used in the claims that are not literally used in the application text but are summarizing words for longer descriptions in the application as filed. A full summary…
The Court of Appeal has overturned the High Court’s finding of non-infringement, holding Napp’s divisional patents, relating to controlled release formulations of a painkiller called oxycodone, to be valid and infringed by Ratiopharm’s and Sandoz’s ‘Cimex’ product. The Court of Appeal’s finding of infringement contrasts with decisions in Germany where the German designation of the…
