In most systems, a patent is valid for 20 years from the filing date of the patent application. Patents are granted with a presumption of validity but no patent is safe from being challenged and declared (partially) invalid by national courts or, in the case of European patents, revoked by the European Patent Office. Often, a claim of invalidity of a patent is a reaction to an action of the patentee, in particular an infringement action.
The Court held that in order to decide that a patented invention is novel, it is not sufficient that the wording in the patent description is different from the wording in the prior art. The technical subject-matter of the prior art must be different. Moreover, it had to be assessed whether publicly accessible information could…
If a party decides to participate in another party’s challenge to a patent so it may share in the benefits of a victory, it may well be ordered to share the costs burden of losing. Actavis was therefore ordered to pay half of Eli Lilly’s costs of successfully defending the revocation actions brought by Dr…
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has now issued its long awaited Opinion 1/09 on the draft agreement concerning the creation of a unified patent litigation system (UPLS). As is well known, this draft agreement drew on many provisions introduced for the first time by the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) and…
H. Lundbeck A/S (hereinafter referred to as Lundbeck) is the holder of European patent EP 0 347 066 entitled “new enantiomers and their isolation”, which designates France and was filed on 1 June 1989; it claims priority of a British patent dated 14 June 1988. The invention relates to the two new enantiomers of the antidepressant drug Citalopram and the use of…
By a judgement dated 28 September 2010, the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris held that claims 1, 2 and 3 of the French designation of Merck & Co. Ltd’s Patent EP 0 724 444 were invalid for being excluded from the scope of patentability in accordance with the provisions of Article 53(c) EPC 2000 (former Article 52 (4) EPC 1973). The court held that the invention the subject-matter of main claim 1 was only a new dosage regime ranging from 0.05 to 1 mg) of an already known compound (finasteride) in an already known therapeutic application (the treatment of hyperandrogenic conditions and especially the treatment of androgenic alopecia). A mere new dosage regime is not a second medical use but a therapeutic method excluded from patentability pursuant to Article 53 (c) EPC 2000.
The District Court of The Hague revoked Glaxo’s European Patent and Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) for an inhalable combination of fluticasone and salmeterol due to lack of inventive step. This decision is put in a pan-European perspective, with reference to the UK case law on inventive step, as well as the parallel English, German and…
The District Court of The Hague passed judgment today in a case between Sandoz and Glaxo regarding a combination patent held by Glaxo. The judgment comprises an extensive “lecture” on the assessment of inventive step and may become a benchmark for future cases.
On 27 October 2010 the Court of Rome issued a decision in the Janssen – Menarini v. EG case concerning the active substance nebivolol. This is one of the few reported cases on enantiomer patents in Italy. In more detail, the basic patent inter alia disclosed an AB compound (so called compound 84) formed of…
In a decision by the Svea Court of Appeal, a preliminary injunction granted by the Stockholm District Court against the company Niconovum AB, was lifted. The Court held that the patent of McNeil AB was probably not valid, despite a request by the patentee for reformulation of the patent claims during the proceedings. The Court…
Do we need a Community Patent? Do we need a European Patent Litigation System? Or does the current fragmented system have a hidden wisdom behind it? Judge for yourself!
