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On 12 February 2019, the influential Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) issued an interesting judgment clarifying the role played by a patent’s drawings for the purpose of interpreting the scope of protection of the claims. This judgment has reversed a previous first instance decision which, according to the Court of Appeal, unduly relied on…
The holder of a standard essential patent (SEP) should first notify the alleged infringer of the SEP, following which the alleged infringer should inform the patent holder of its willingness to take a licence. Then, said licence needs to be offered on FRAND terms. These steps are guidelines for good faith negotiations between the parties….
Regulatory Data Protection (RDP) issues are dealt with only by the Licensing Regulation of the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Turkey. In principle the relevant provision grants protection of data of originators for a term of 6 years as of the date of first Marketing Authorisation granted in the EU. However there is no mechanism…
On 5 July 2019, the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia (Full Court) handed down its judgment in the appeal and cross-appeal in Calidad Pty Ltd v Seiko Epson Corporation [2019] FCAFC 115. The judgment considers in-depth the extent to which a patentee can: prevent those who have acquired title to a patented…
The case at hand concerned an application by Pfizer for Arrow-declarations in relation to its proposed launch of its bevacizumab product (it will be branded “Zirabev”) for the treatment of various cancers in combination with other drugs. Since Pfizer was unable to show a “useful purpose”, the complaint was dismissed. The mere prospect of using…
The Court of Appeal, overturning Birss J’s decision, decided that in the case of TQ Delta v ZyXEL, the answer was no. The facts of the case leading to this decision are somewhat unusual. TQ Delta asserted infringement of two patents declared essential to ITU-T standards. Following a trial in respect of liability, one of…
Among the flurry of pre-summer vacation judgments coming from the Patents Court is one from Mr Justice Birss (17 July 2019), concerning the validity of Hoffman-La Roche’s patent EP (UK) 2 007 809. EP’809 is a formulation patent for the monoclonal antibody vedolizumab, marketed as Entyvio® and used to treat ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease….
The scope of a patent is to be interpreted according to Art. 69 EPC and the Protocol. If the literal text is limiting, the question is how the skilled person would understand this limitation. If the limiting wording is due to a technical consideration, the limitation may be considered differently from when the limitation can…
One of the worst nightmares or, in a few cases, real events in a patent professional’s life is when he/she realizes that an important term has inadvertently been missed and the usual means of term extension are no longer available. What then? Will the hardship of the applicable European or national statute inevitably hit you?…
In the past few years, the Barcelona Courts with jurisdiction over patent matters (Commercial Courts nos. 1, 4 and 5) have acted in close coordination with one another, e.g. holding joint deliberations of the three judges. Now, in a case where one of those Courts refused to join two separate infringement actions pending before Courts…
