According to article 83 European Patent Convention (EPC): ‘The European patent application shall disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art.’ For the disclosure to be sufficient at least one way of carrying out the invention should be disclosed in the description such that it is apparent to the skilled person how to put the invention into practice. Lack of sufficiency is a ground for revocation of a European patent in opposition proceedings at the European Patent Office, and for invalidation by national courts.
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…
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…
by Rachel Mumby Those readers who are unfamiliar with the excessively optimistic outlook of Mr Wilkins Micawber in Charles Dicken’s novel David Copperfield, would be forgiven for having had to look up the word “Micawberism” on reading it in the judgment of Floyd J (as he then was) in Blacklight Power Inc. v The Comptroller-General…
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…
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…
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…
The development of Herceptin (trastuzumab) in the late 1980s and 1990s is one of the most remarkable advances in the treatment of breast cancer. The story of the drug and its pioneer, the “velvet jackhammer”, Dennis Slamon, is neatly summarised in Siddhartha Mukherjee’s award winning novel: “The Emperor of All Maladies – a Biography of…
a) The applicant is not obliged to limit the protective scope to explicitly described embodiments, but may make certain generalisations to cover the entire invention. b) Whether a claim containing generalisations is enabled depends on whether the protective scope extends beyond the most generalized teaching solving the underlying problem. c) Functionally describing a group of…
Different views from the EPO and Germany on the same case 1. Introduction Functional features in patent claims may provide protection not only for specific embodiments disclosed in the patent specification, but also for undisclosed (future) embodiments. A classic example is a claim of the format “An inhibitor of protein P for the treatment of…
Introduction In my previous post of 2 August 2013 I made passing reference to the recent decision of the English Court of Appeal in the Copaxone litigation. This case was an appeal of the decision of Arnold J (previously reported here) where he found Yeda’s patent valid and infringed. With permission of the court, Mylan…
