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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…
After Novartis had obtained a preliminary injunction against Pharmathen, it observed that there were still infringing acts being performed. In the first instance, the provisions judge sided with Novartis and ordered that Pharmathen had to pay EUR 7,500,000 as a penalty. On appeal Pharmathen tried to reverse this verdict, but its efforts were in vain….
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…
The king is dead! Long live the king! An expression traditionally uttered at the death of a monarch to acclaim a new king on the death of his predecessor. Could it be applied to our traditional French saisie-contrefaçon at the advent of saisie-contrefaçon before the UPC? This question came to mind last week during a…
On 18 September 2024, the Honourable Justice Jackman, in his capacity as a Deputy President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), granted Sandoz a licence pursuant to section 223(9) of the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) (Act). In doing so, his Honour set aside an earlier, 2019 decision, in which the Commissioner of Patents (Commissioner) had also…
Brazil is an increasingly relevant venue for litigation involving standard essential patents (SEPs). As a top-5 market in the world for consumer electronics and the most performing economy in Latin America, Brazil is indeed an important country for players in tech. Think of X (formerly “Twitter”), which has recently been banned in Brazil for failing…
The recently released judgment in J1/24 (relating to EP 3660979B1), from the Legal Board of Appeal at the European Patent Office (EPO) is a divisive judgment, which could potentially have far-reaching implications. Existing legislation ignored/overturned by J1/24 The European Patent Convention is clear that a divisional application must be filed from a pending parent application,…
In an important decision rendered on 24 April 2024, the Commercial Chamber of the Cour de cassation (i.e., French Supreme Court) ruled that the assignment of a patent is not enforceable against third parties if it is not registered, but that the regularization of this situation during the infringement proceedings allows covering all acts of…
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…
While the patentability of further medical use claim defined by a dosage regimen used to be ruled out, the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal has accepted them since decision G 2/08 in 2010. This patentability was also strongly debated before the French Courts, even after G 2/08, before being eventually recognized, although the interpretation of…
