A Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) extends the term of a patent for a medicinal or plant protection product by a period of not more than five years. The aim of SPCs is to compensate the patent owner for ‘lost’ patent protection which was caused by the time it took to obtain marketing authorisation for the product in question. An SPC is a national right, available in member states of the European Union (EU) by application to the national patent office of the state for which a certificate is desired. The SPC is based on a patent and is granted in respect of an active ingredient in a medicinal or plant protection product.
According to Spanish law, the decisions handed down by the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office (“SPTO”) in relation to applications for Supplementary Protection Certificates (“SPCs”) may be appealed to the “High Courts of Justice.” These are regional courts with jurisdiction to review the legality of administrative acts dealing with certain specific matters. In the context…
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…
The European Commission has taken the first step towards creating a European Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC). A Call for Tender for a ‘Study on the legal aspects of the supplementary protection certificates in EU’ was published last month. The deadline for the Call for Tender is 4 February 2016. After signing a contract, the study…
One of the legacies that the year we are about to leave behind will leave us is the Judgment of 6 October 2015 handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in Case C-471/14 Seattle Genetics Inc. v. Österreichisches Patentamt (“Austrian Patent Office”). The case had its origins in a request…
The lack of provisions on Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) is seen as a major flaw in the new Unitary Patent (UP) system. Initiatives have been taken to address this issue and recently the European Commission put it on its action list. Why doesn’t the UP Regulation include a provision for SPCs? Anja Lunze, attorney at…
In the Sanofi v. Teva ruling of 10 July 2014, the Court of Milan clarified the test for abuse of process, and denied an award of damages allegedly caused by the issue of a preliminary injunction which was later lifted due to the revocation of the enforced SPC. The case concerned the Italian part of the irbesartan…
The legendary deficient regulation of supplementary protection certificates (“SPCs”) has caused the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (the “SPTO”) and Spanish Courts to struggle as to whether or not the “restitutio in integrum” procedure available to patents is also applicable to SPCs. The High Court of Justice of Madrid, in a recent Judgment of 22…
In the aftermath of the CJEU decisions Eli Lilly/Medeva and Actavis/Georgetown II, the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property proposes changes in its SPC granting practice. One hot topic in connection with the granting of SPCs concerns the question on how to define whether a product is protected by a basic patent (Art. 3 (a)…
The Supplementary Protection Certificate (“SPC”) seas have been relatively calm after the turmoil caused by “Super Thursday” (i.e. 12 December 2013), when shortly before packing for Christmas the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) published three judgments on SPCs in a row. However, over the last few months there have been recent developments,…
by Miriam Büttner In a recent decision the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on the maximum period of exclusivity of a patent and a supplementary protection certificate (SPC) (Order of the Court dated 13 February 2014 – case no C-555/13, Merck Canada Inc. vs. Accord Healthcare Ltd and others). Background: Merck Canada Inc. (Merck)…
