Novelty is a requirement for patentability. An invention is not new and therefore not patentable if it was known to the public (disclosed in the prior art) before the filing date of the patent application, or, if the application claims priority of an earlier patent application, before the priority date.
By decision no. 9291 of 19 April 2010, the Italian Supreme Court clarified that the sale of a single unit of the patented product is novelty destroying under Art. 46 of the Italian IP Code, which provides that an invention is new if it is not comprised in the state of art and that this…
On the basis of a use patent, Aventis filed for interim relief against Hospira at the Bailiff’s Court (Enforcement court) at Lyngby City Court in Denmark. The claim was based on DK/EP 0593656 and the defence raised by Hospira was invalidity of the invoked right.
The District Court of The Hague granted Mundipharma a provisional injunction against Sandoz for infringement of its patent for a controlled release oxycodon formulation. The District Court suspended its decision on the validity and infringement of the patent in the main action until a final decision has been rendered in the opposition proceedings. The Court…
As the Supreme Court had held for European Patents (SC 6 March 2009 Boston Scientific/Medinol), the Court of Appeal now affirms that the so-called Spiro/Flamco doctrine, which set strict requirements for partial nullification/maintenance of a patent, is also no longer applicable to Dutch patents since EPC 2000 came into force. The patent holder has the…
The District Court of The Hague holds the Dutch part of Eli Lilly’s olanzapine patent and SPC invalid because the substance olanzapine has been directly and unambiguously disclosed in a prior art document. According to the Court, the person skilled in the art will immediately recognize the error and the correction for this error in…
The case concerned the validity of a ‘selection patent’. The Court of Appeal held that there is no special approach to be adopted in determining the validity of selection patents and that UK law should be consistent with EPO jurisprudence. For novelty, a prior disclosure of a large class of compounds does not take away…
After a fresh analysis in light of evidence provided by the complainant, the Barcelona Court of Appeal confirmed the novelty of Calcium Atorvastatin, as it had done in earlier judgments of 2007 and 2008. In addition, this is the first judgment in which the Court confirmed the inventive activity of this product. For its analysis…
The selection of explicitly disclosed borderline values defining several (sub)ranges, in order to form a new (narrower) subrange, is not contestable under Article 123 (2) EPC when the ranges belong to the same list. However, the combination of an individual range from this list with another individual range from a second list that relates to…
The High Court dismissed Novartis’ claim for infringement of its EP(UK) patent for ophthalmically compatible extended wear contact lenses. Although Novartis established that the defendants’ product falls within certain claims of the patent, and successfully resisted Johnson & Johnson’s novelty and obviousness attacks, the patent was found invalid for insufficiency. The Court held it would…
The High Court dismissed Novartis’ claim for infringement of its EP(UK) patent for ophthalmically compatible extended wear contact lenses. Although Novartis established that the defendants’ product falls within certain claims of the patent, and successfully resisted Johnson &Johnson’s novelty and obviousness attacks, the patent was found invalid for insufficiency. The Court held it would involve…
