Germany’s Federal Court of Justice revokes Leo’s Calcipotriol Monohydrate Patent
This contribution compares various decisions of national European courts on inventive step in the case of a monohydrate of a (known) drug, i.e. calcipotriol.
Italy
The Italian Supreme Court on the test for prior disclosure
By decision of 23 March 2012, the Supreme Court decided a case between two competitors in the field of steel products and machinery, concerning in particular the alleged infringement of two Italian patents covering a winding up mechanism for steel wire. The alleged infringer had counterclaimed invalidity based on prior disclosure, claiming in particular that…
The Italian Supreme Court on prior use
By decision of 5 April 2012, no. 5497, the Italian Supreme Court resolved an interesting case concerning the application of Article 68 (3) Italian IP Code, according to which “Whoever, in the course of 12 months preceding the filing date of the patent application or its priority date, has made use of the invention in…
The Italian Supreme Court on infringement by equivalents
The Italian case law on infringement by equivalent is rather scant and, until very recently, only one decision had been issued on this matter by the Supreme Court: 13 January 2004, no. 257, Lisec v. Forel, which stated that in order to assess infringement by equivalents it is necessary to consider whether the allegedly infringing…
Pfizer ordered to pay Euro 10.6 million for abuse of dominant position by the Italian Antitrust Authority
By decision of 11 January 2012 Pfizer was found liable of abuse of dominant position by the Italian Antitrust Authority and ordered to pay 10.6 million euro. My previous posts on this case can be found here, here and here. In substance AGCM (the Italian antitrust Authority) has now decided that Pfizer abused its dominant…
Commercial courts of Barcelona go one step further towards specialisation
There seems to be ample consensus in that Justice is better administered by specialised Judges than by non-specialised Judges. With this view in mind, in 1993 the Barcelona Court of Appeal took a groundbreaking step forward by conferring exclusive competence to one section (Section 15) to hear appeals filed in intellectual property cases. The successful…
Preliminary Technical Assessments not available to assess the validity of the patent
As stated already in one my earlier posts (here), Legislative Decree no. 131/2010 has introduced a new procedural tool in the Italian IP litigation scenario. New Art. 128 of the Italian IP Code now allows the conduction of a Preliminary Technical Assessment (PTA). In practice, as an alternative to commencing ordinary proceedings or preliminary injunction…
AN EU PATENTS VESSEL WITHOUT CABINS (AND NOW EVEN SEATS) FOR ITALY AND SPAIN?
By Miquel Montañá In year 2021, Italy will celebrate the 600th anniversary of the patent granted by the Republic of Florence to Filippo Brunelleschi for his ship “Il Badalone”, the first patent ever granted. Quite ironically, the fathers of the first patent, and of the first Patent Act, approved by the Republic of Venice in…
The Court of Rome endorses the “infringement test” in a case concerning Novartis combination SPC
On 11 November 2011 the IP Chamber of the Court of Rome granted the motion for preliminary injunction requested by Novartis AG and Novartis Farma S.p.A. against Mylan S.p.A. on the basis of Novartis’ Italian valsartan and hydrochlorothiazide SPC, the active ingredients in Novartis’ Co-Diovan medicinal product (which is marketed in Italy as Co-Tareg). The…
Generics can be sued in the courts of the pharmacies, says the Court of Turin
A recently published decision of the Court of Turin in the case Merck Sharpe & Dohme versus Sandoz (decision of 7 April 2011), concerning dorzolamide hydrochloride timolol maleate eye drops, provides an interesting interpretation of the Italian rules governing territorial jurisdiction in the case of the infringement of pharmaceutical patents. MS&D sued Sandoz before the…