Case Law, Portugal

(University of Coimbra)/

Conflicts between patents and generic medicaments are mandatorily solved by arbitration. Requests of authorization to introduce generic medicaments in the market (AIM) are published by the Portuguese Medicaments Office (INFARMED) and interested parties have a term of 30 days to oppose their industrial property rights. Upon the termination of the term, patents cannot be enforced…

Case Law, Portugal

(University of Coimbra)/

The statute which provides that holders of industrial property rights can resort only to arbitration instead of directly resorting to state courts concerning provisional or interim measures (Article 2 of Law No 62/2011 of 12 December) is not contrary to the Portuguese constitution. However, the statute according to which a patent cannot be enforced against…

United States of America

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The Patent and Trial Appeal Board erred in dismissing Airbus S.A.S.’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction based on a lack of substantial new question of patentability because the Director had already ordered inter partes reexamination, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Airbus S.A.S. v. Firepass Corporation, July 17, 2015, Lourie,…

Injunction, Sweden

(Attorneys-at-Law TRUST)/

By Kristian Fredrikson, Dephi and Jan Lindberg, Trust Ltd. This time I want to introduce a fellow author from Sweden, Kristian Fredrikson, who promised to write about this interesting recent decision from the Supreme Court (Högsta domstolen 18 June 2015, case no B6341-13). It does not concern patents per se but an infringer’s liability for…

Netherlands, Unitary Patent, UPC

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The Dutch draft legislation to implement the Unitary Patent Package in the Netherlands includes an interesting ‘safety net’ provision. If registration of unitary effect of a European patent is rejected by the EPO and this is confirmed by the UPC (as the case may be), there will be a possibility to validate the patent in…

Case Law, Germany

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

When defining the technical problem underlying an invention, it may not simply be assumed that the person skilled in the art needed to address a particular problem. On the contrary, the technical problem must be formulated so generally and neutrally that the question as to which incentives a person skilled in the art obtained from…

Case Law, Germany

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

(a) Advantages of the invention that have only become evident once the invention was made, and at which therefore the skilled person would not have directed his efforts to further develop the state of the art, may not be used to define the technical problem underlying the invention (the Aufgabe of the invention). (b) Depending…

Case Law, Norway

(Wikborg Rein)/

In its decision 24 April 2015, the Borgarting Court of Appeal upheld a decision from the Oslo District Court revoking Genentech’s Norwegian patent NO 323 557 (the ‘557-patent) which concerns formulations of pharmaceutical proteins, including trastuzumab. Trastuzumab is the active ingredient in Genentech’s product Herceptin. Hospira successfully argued that the disputed claims of the ‘557-patent…