Case Law, Pharma, United States of America

(Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US)/

Pharmaceuticals company Watson’s proposed generic version of competitor Shire’s brand-name mesalamine LIALDA® did not satisfy the requirements for a Markush group claimed by a Shire patent, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. A compound contained in the ANDA product—which was not present in the patent claim’s Markush group—structurally and functionally…

Case Law, Portugal

(University of Coimbra)/

Provisional measures, notably the interlocutory injunction provided for by Article 338-I of the Portuguese Code of Industrial Property, do not extend to the provisional protection of a European patent, nor to a national patent the translation of which is not yet published, because there is an insufficent degree of fumus boni iuris as the protection…

Case Law, Lithuania

(METIDA Law Firm)/

In relation to a dispute concerning the novelty of one invention, the Court held that testing a new product in a special laboratory under contract is not public as such. The testing process and its results are not usually available to third parties, so it cannot be equated to disclosure of information about the product…

Case Law, Lithuania

(METIDA Law Firm)/

The court upheld the decision that the patent applications in question had been appropriately considered and that the examiner had established that there were formal reasons for refusing the patent applications.  It also ruled that since the patent applications had been refused solely on formal grounds, the Plaintiff still had the right to file those…

Australia, Extent of Protection, Inventive step, Scope of protection

, , (Clayton Utz)/

Australia ended 2016 flipping through the pages of the Productivity Commission’s final Inquiry Report on Australia’s Intellectual Property Arrangements. In general, the Commission considers that IP rights encourage innovation, but are not always necessary for it and can often be used harmfully. The proposed changes are aimed at balancing the interests of rights holders with…

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

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Italy has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement. It is the 12th member state of the Unitary Patent project to do so. The instrument of ratification, the formal final step in the procedure, was deposited with the EU Council on 10 February 2017. The two chambers of the Italian Parliament had approved the ratification bill…

European Union, Unitary Patent, UPC

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No more than 15 to 60 seconds. That’s the time it will take to opt out a patent from the jurisdiction of the Unified Patent Court, once the so-called sunrise period of the Court has started on 1 September 2017. A piece of cake? Not at all. Before legal representatives or patent proprietors can file opt-outs…

Chemical Engineering, China, SPC

(Baker & McKenzie) and , (ZY Partners)/

A positive view is spreading on post-filing experimental data in China since the recent official post of the proposed revisions to the Guidelines for Patent Examination (the “Guidelines”) by the State IP Office (the “SIPO”) of China.  People tend to think that the window is about to open to post-filing experimental data, just like it…

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

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The UK will ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) in March, most likely before the Brexit article 50 is triggered. German will be ready to ratify soon as well, but will delay the official deposit of its instrument of ratification with the EU Council, with a view to the Court starting its operations on…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, CJEU, Damages

(Clifford Chance)/

On 25 January 2017, the CJEU handed down a very interesting judgment in case C-367/15, concluding that Article 13 of Directive EC 2004/48 (better known as “the Enforcement Directive”) does not prevent a national regulation from stating that when an intellectual property right (“IPR”) has been infringed, the IPR owner may claim an amount corresponding…