(Indirect) infringement, Equivalents, Italy, Pharma, Validity

(Trevisan & Cuonzo)/

By decision no. 1651 of 14 October 2016 (publication reference: 24658/2016), the Italian Supreme Court put an end to the longstanding litigation between Bayer and the Italian company Industriale Chimica in relation to the production of drospirenone. This decision tackles both the issue of the patentability of chemical intermediates and that of infringement by equivalents….

EPO, EPO Decision

(V.O.)/

The Board of Appeal found that the examining division had committed a substantial procedural violation by raising tentative patentability objections rather than completing an improperly justified incomplete search. Thus tentative examination had improperly been used as a condition for completing the search, rather than completing the search first and examining later. This forced the applicant…

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

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Germany has resumed preparations for the ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. A draft bill for the implementation of the UPCA was published on 9 December 2016 by Justice Minister Heiko Maas. Together with the UK, Germany is one of the two countries that still have to ratify the UPCA before the Unitary Patent system…

Case Law, Enforcement, Injunction, Pharma, Second Medical Use, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

by Steven Willis Yesterday, the Patents Court handed down yet another decision in the Sisyphean pregablin litigation, this time refusing Sandoz’ application to vary the Order for Injunction which resulted from Arnold J’s October 2015 decision (“Sandoz I”) to injunct Sandoz following its launch of a full label pregabalin product (“Pregabalin Sandoz”). As is typically…

Australia

, , (Clayton Utz)/

IP Australia has recently published its Exposure Drafts for the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2017 and the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Regulations 2017 for public comment. The amendments aim to “align and streamline the processes for obtaining, maintaining and challenging intellectual property (IP) rights” and to ” reduce the regulatory burden for businesses that…

United States of America

(Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US)/

The federal district court in Los Angeles did not err in granting default judgment and a permanent injunction to United Construction Products, Inc. dba Bison Innovative Products on its patent infringement and unfair competition claims against Tile Tech, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled (Tile Tech, Inc. v. United…

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

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The UK signed the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the Unified Patent Court on 14 December 2016 in Brussels. It is an important step in the process that should lead to UK ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The UK still needs to pass national legislation, a so-called statutory instrument (SI), to enact…