Revocation

Revocation of a patent concerns a mechanism which provides for an inter partes review of the validity of a. At the European Patent Office a patent can be revoked by the Opposition Division or Boards of Appeal. A notice of opposition has to be filed within nine months from the publication of the mention of the grant of a European patent.  In 2000 Article 105a was introduced in the European Patent Convention, providing centralised limitation and revocation procedures at the level of the EPO, which allows the patent proprietor either to have the claims of his granted patent limited or to have the whole patent revoked for all its designated states. The effect of this central revocation is that the patent in question is deemed never to have existed. It is revoked ex tunc.

Case Law, Infringement, Inventive step, Litigation, Novelty, Prior art, Revocation, United Kingdom, Validity

, (Bristows)/

Around this time last year, in Edwards Lifesciences v Boston Scientific [2017], His Honour Judge Hacon (sitting as a High Court Judge) had the opportunity to analyse two interesting aspects of UK patent law: (i) the law of implied disclosures and anticipation; and (ii) the importance of so-called secondary evidence in the evaluation of inventive…

EPC, EPO, Equivalents, Inventive step, Litigation, Novelty, Pharma, Pharmaceutical patent, Prior art, Revocation, Second Medical Use, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/

Patent lawyers in the UK have spent the last three months pondering, debating and at times indulging in an element of despair (to put it mildly) about what might be the impact of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Actavis v Eli Lilly [2017] UKSC 48 on issues of validity (see here). Today they…

Case Law, Novelty, Procedure, Revocation, Switzerland, Validity

(MLL Meyerlustenberger Lachenal Froriep Ltd.)/

Although there is a well-known crime novel by James M. Cain saying the contrary, the postman does not always ring twice, particularly not in patent nullity proceedings when it comes to the service of the complaint under the Hague Convention. Recently, two patents were declared null and void in Switzerland. In both proceedings the revocation…

Biologics, Inventive step, Revocation, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/

by Chloe Dickson On 30 November 2016 the Court of Appeal handed down judgment in the latest chapter of the Hospira v Genentech epic surrounding Genentech’s blockbuster drug trastuzumab (Herceptin®) (Hospira v Genentech [2016] EWCA Civ 1185). This instalment concerned a patent for use of the antibody trastuzumab in combination with a traditional chemotherapeutic agent,…

Australia, Case Law, Pharma, Revocation, Second Medical Use, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

, , (Clayton Utz)/

On 21 October 2016, the Federal Court of Australia handed down its judgment in the case of Apotex Pty Ltd v Warner-Lambert Company LLC (No 2) [2016] FCA 1238 (FCA Judgment).  Justice John Nicholas found in favour of Warner-Lambert, both upholding the validity of its patent claims and granting final injunctions restraining infringement by Apotex….

Case Law, Inventive step, Priority right, Revocation, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

(Bristows)/ /2 Comments

by Steven Willis Yesterday, the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in Idenix v Gilead [2016] EWCA Civ 1089, a dispute involving SOVALDI® (sofosbuvir), which is sold by Gilead as a treatment for chronic hepatitis C infection in adults. At first instance, Arnold J held (in an epic 621 paragraph judgment) that Idenix’s Patent…

(Indirect) infringement, Pharma, Procedure, Revocation, Second Medical Use, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity

, , (Bristows)/

Media attention at the English High Court today may have been focussed on the Article 50 challenge but for many patent lawyers operating in the life sciences sector, of equal or greater importance was the handing down of the long-awaited judgment in the Lyrica appeal. To recap briefly, Pfizer was the owner of a patent…

Added matter, Amendments, Countries, Germany, Inventive step, Revocation

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

The German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) recently issued a second decision in a nullity lawsuit revolving around a windscreen for vehicles (Fahrzeugscheibe II, X ZR 41/14). While the first decision dealt with interesting questions regarding the transferability of the right to priority, the second one treads more conventional paths, yet it still contains a…

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…

(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…