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 patent in suit contains claims for the (+)enantiomer of citalopram and a method for its resolution from the racemate (the diol method). The Defendants appealed a decision of the Court of Appeal arguing that the patent was insufficient because it effectively claimed the (+)enantiomer made by any method whereas the specification only disclosed two…
Lack of novelty by re-working prior art requires that the re-works must inevitably lead to results falling within the claim of the patent at issue. If choices have to be made for the re-working process, the result is not inevitable.A possible breach of Article 84 EPC (clarity) does not lead to nullity. The Court states…
In this judgment the Court of Appeal considers the appellant’s claim for invalidation of the patent inadmissible as he did not call the co-proprietor of the patent to join the proceedings. While considered valid on substantive grounds, the claim in question needs to be rephrased to fulfill the industrial applicability. As nullity of the patent…
