The inventive step reflects a general patentability requirement in most patent laws, according to which an invention should be sufficiently inventive (not obvious in view of the prior art using the skilled person’s common general knowledge) in order to be patented / the patent to be held valid. In the United States, rather than ‘inventive step’, the expression ‘non-obviousness’ is used: is the invention an adequate distance beyond or above the state of the art? The assessment of the inventive step varies from one country to another. The European Patent Office uses the so-called problem-and-solution approach to assess inventive step, an instrument also used by several national European courts.
In case you missed it, here are the main points from the EPO Boards of Appeal Case Law Conference 2024. As ever, this was a really interesting event with lots of high quality presentations. Above all, it is great to hear at first hand what the Board members themselves think of the hot topics at…
UPC 252/2023 NanoString v Harvard ACT_551180/2023 (UPC_CFI_252/2023) The UPC’s Munich Central Division has recently issued its decision revoking Harvard’s EP 2794928 B1 (“the Patent”) in DE, NL, and FR, with other EPO member states likely excluded from the decision on commercial grounds having lapsed during opposition proceedings in 2019. The decision is appealable. The NanoString decision…
On 8 October 2024, Mr Justice Meade handed down judgment in BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc., (together, BioNTech/Pfizer) v CureVac SE. Meade J found CureVac’s patents, relating to split poly(A) tails in mRNA, invalid for obviousness and insufficiency due to (i) lack of plausibility and (ii) because the purported technical effect does not in fact…
When interpreting a patent claim, the person skilled in the art does not apply a philological understanding, but rather determines the technical meaning of the terms used with the aid of the description and the drawings. From the function of the individual features in the context of the patent claim as a whole, it must…
On 16 July 2024, the Munich Central Division revoked a patent for the first time in the litigation between Sanofi, Regeneron, and Amgen (UPC_CFI_1/2023). This decision is important not only because it is the first of its kind, but also because it establishes UPC’s position on the patentability of therapeutic antibody inventions. In this case,…
This morning, the Barcelona Appeal Court has announced a judgment of 18 July 2024, reversing the judgment of 15 January 2024 from Commercial Court number 4 of Barcelona, which had found patent EP 1,427,415 (“EP ‘415”), protecting apixaban, to be invalid. The main highlights of the decision may be summarized as follows: The first interesting…
Moderna secured a double victory in the Patents Court last week (2 July 2024) in proceedings against Pfizer and BioNTech. In the first decision, Meade J found its modified mRNA patent to be valid and infringed by Pfizer and BioNTech’s “Comirnaty” vaccine. In the second decision, Richards J rejected Pfizer and BioNTech’s defence based on…
In his Abbott v Dexcom ([2024] EWHC 1664 (Pat)) judgment, published on 28 June 2024, Mr Justice Mellor was faced with the rather unenviable task of determining the approach of the Skilled Team when “due to their differing experiences and expertise” it was unclear if any of the experts were in a position to comment…
The recent rivaroxaban PI cases may have caused you to ask yourself whether the American Cynamid principles for determining whether or not to grant preliminary injunctive relief in the UK are dead or at least dying. In this article we consider the facts of the rivaroxaban PI applications and aim to tease out some principles…
Blurring the edges between reality and make-believe, the Metaverse is part of an aspirational Web 3.0, characterised by certain features including an immersive 3D virtual space, interoperability, and real-time operation. While there is no consensus on its definition, certain foundational technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence) and XR (extended reality), which includes VR (virtual reality),…
