EPC, EPO, European Union, Germany, Investment, Litigation, Pharma, Pharmaceutical patent, TRIPS, TRIPs Agreement, UPC

(Rospatt Osten Pross )/ /10 Comments

Since the Eli Lilly v. Canada award of 2017, the relevance of international investment law for patents has been known to a wider public. In response to the revocation of two Canadian patents concerning the compounds olanzapine and atomoxetine by Canadian courts, the US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly initiated arbitral proceedings against Canada on the…

Case Law, CJEU, EPC, Pharmaceutical patent

(Hoffmann Eitle)/ /5 Comments

…great forces are up against each other and a dispute arises. Fortunately, it is not a war of biblical dimensions, but only a lawsuit, a significant and legally interesting one though, about an Supplementary Protection Certificate. The parties were Teva (Hebrew word for nature) and Gilead (aka Hill of Testimony, a mountainous region east of…

European Union, Pharma, SPC

/ /3 Comments

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has clarified when a product is ‘protected by a basic patent’ within the meaning of article 3(a) of the SPC Regulation. In a long awaited preliminary ruling, the CJEU decided last week that: ‘Article 3(a) of Regulation No 469/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May…

Case Law, United States of America

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Substantial evidence supported a jury’s finding that Raytheon Company failed to show that infrared imaging equipment manufacturers Indigo Systems and FLIR Systems Incorporated (collectively, “Indigo”) misappropriated trade secrets relating to sequential vacuum baking procedure and in situ solder sealing package assemblies, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled, because a reasonable…

Case Law, United States of America

(Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US)/

The federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, properly dismissed an inventor’s appeal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decisions rejecting six patent applications on the grounds of lack of utility and collateral estoppel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The applications were directed to unproven cold fusion technology. One…

Brexit, European Union, Unitary Patent, United Kingdom, UPC

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The United Kingdom wants to stay in the Unitary Patent system post-Brexit. This has been confirmed in the UK’s Brexit White Paper, which was published today. According to article 151 of the paper, ‘The UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement and intends to explore staying in the Court and unitary patent system after…

Equivalents, Extent of Protection, Infringement, Litigation, Pharma, Pharmaceutical patent, Scope of protection, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/ /3 Comments

On 12 July 2017, the UK Supreme Court handed down a ruling which caused a shockwave to resound across the UK patent community. For more than a decade, when addressing the issue of the construction and infringement of a patent, every practitioner would have focussed on the question prescribed by Lord Hoffmann in Kirin Amgen:…

Case Law, United States of America

(Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US)/

The federal district court in San Juan, Puerto Rico, erred in dismissing copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and state law claims brought by a music contestant against pop recording artist Enrique Martin-Morales (aka Ricky Martin) on the ground that the contest rules compelled arbitration of the claims, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston has ruled….

Case Law, Ireland, Pharma

(Mccann Fitzgerald)/

The applicant, Teva, sought an order for the revocation of the Irish designation of European Patent No. (IE) 1379220 entitled “Inhalation Capsules” (the “220 Patent”) on the grounds of (i) obviousness, (ii) an “AgrEvo” challenge and (iii) insufficiency.  The Court ruled in Boehringer’s favour by upholding the validity of the 220 Patent and rejecting all…