Pharma

Pharma, an abbreviation commonly used for the pharmaceutical industry, discovers, develops, produces and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medication. Pharma depends heavily on patents to protect its inventions worldwide, as well as on Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs). Pharmaceutical companies are subject to laws and regulations that govern the patenting, testing, safety, efficacy and marketing of drugs. Pharma includes production of generic medicines. Pharma may also refer to (patent) litigation related to pharmaceutical products.

Added matter, Inventive step, Novelty, Pharma, Priority right, Public prior use, Revocation, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/ /5 Comments

by Rachel Mumby Bexsero, the Meningitis B vaccine marketed by GSK, has been the subject of many newspaper headlines in the UK over the last year, with parents seeking to persuade the UK Government to offer the vaccine to all children under the age of 11 as a matter of routine. Few will have been…

EPO, Opposition, Pharma, Procedure, SPC, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

Case reported and summarised by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP The UK does not operate a system of automatically staying proceedings which concern validity of a European patent where there are ongoing opposition proceedings at the EPO. Nevertheless, the Court retains discretion to stay such proceedings, and a recent judgment of Mrs Justice Rose on 18…

EPO, Pharma, Procedure, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/

Case reported and summarised by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP Mr Justice Carr has issued an interesting interim judgment regarding the jurisdiction of the English Court to grant negative declarations in relation to patent applications before the EPO (Fujifilm Kyowa Biologics v Abbvie Biotechnology [2016] EWHC 425 (Pat)). The case concerns an application by Fujifilm Kyowa…

(Indirect) infringement, Antibodies, Biologics, Extension of subject matter, Inventive step, Pharma, Revocation, Scope of protection, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/

Case reported and summarized by Gregory Bacon, Bristows LLP Mr Justice Carr is only a few months into his judicial career, but having already provided welcome guidance on the role of plausibility in considering both the questions of inventive step and sufficiency (see earlier blog post on Actavis v Eli Lilly), he has now produced…

Inventive step, Pharma, Priority right, Second Medical Use, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

Mr Justice Carr has only been sitting as a full time judge for just over a month and yet in his decision of 16 November 2015, he has already produced what this author considers to be a sensible, but thought-provoking judgment that is readable and comparatively concise. The case involved a challenge by the well-known…

(Indirect) infringement, Enforcement, Finland, Kluwer Patent Cases, Pharma, TRIPS

(Roschier)/

The Finnish Supreme Court held that the reversal of the burden of proof stipulated in Article 34 TRIPs as implemented in the Finnish Patent Act does not per se require a party to disclose its manufacturing process, but only to prove that it used a different process than that specified in the patent. The threshold…

(Indirect) infringement, Exceptions to patentability, Pharma, Second Medical Use, Switzerland

(MLL Legal Ltd.)/

By Mark Schweizer, Reinhard Oertli and Simon Holzer The Swiss lawmaker plans to introduce a new exemption from patent protection for physicians and pharmacies. The new exemptions aims to protect physicians and pharmacies from being involved in patent disputes concerning second medical use claims according to the EPC 2000 (purpose-limited product Claims). From Swiss-type claims…

Case Law, EPC, Opposition, Pharma, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

The English High Court (Arnold J.) has granted an application for a stay of the UK High Court proceedings to revoke the UK designation of an EP patent pending the outcome of opposition proceedings at the EPO. The decision is unusual as Arnold J had previously refused to stay the validity proceedings in this case…

(Indirect) infringement, Denmark, Equivalents, Injunction, Pharma

(Bugge Valentin)/

On February 13, 2015 the Eastern High Court of Denmark issued a decision in an appeal in interlocutory proceedings regarding an application for an interim injunction against the marketing and sale of generic medicines (birth-control pills) containing, inter alia, drospirenone. Bayer is the proprietor of two patents regarding a method for producing drospirenone. On June…

Pharma, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

1. Introduction: Over the last decade, in some of the countries that did not introduce patent protection for pharmaceutical products until 1992, there has been an intense debate which has included, inter alia, the following two questions: (i) whether or not under Articles 70.2 and 27.1 of TRIPS, a patent granted following an application claiming…