Since the dismissal by the Court of Justice of the European Union of Spain’s actions on 5 May 2015 a number of positive decisions are coming from the unitary patent / UPC scene: 1) By the end of May, Italy had announced to be willing to become a “unitary patent member state”. Last week the…
No, not what you might perhaps have hoped for. A lot is currently ongoing at the European Patent Office about the status, the independence, the future location and the (self-)administration of the EPO’s Boards of Appeal, but this blogger is neither sufficiently well-informed nor competent to comment on the big picture. So let’s stick to…
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…
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…
(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…
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…
Both parties’ patents in dispute relate to chemical compounds that are appropriate for use in pharmaceutical drugs, in particular for the treatment of flaviviridae infections such as hepatitis C virus infections. Ruling that Idenix’ patent lacks a sufficiently clear description, and that Gilead’s patent is novel and inventive, the Oslo District Court declared Idenix’ patent…
The Actavis v Eli Lilly UK litigation concerning pemetrexed (sold by Eli Lilly under the brand Alimta(®) has already been widely reported in light of Actavis’ innovative application to the English court for declarations of non-infringement (DNIs) of national designations of a European Patent in addition to the UK designation. The latest instalment concerns the…
Dr Catherine Chammartin was appointed as new Director General of the Swiss Federal Office of Intellectual Property last week. She will take up her position on 1 November 2015. Dr Catherine Chammartin is not an insider of the Swiss IP community. The thirty-six-year old used to work for the Swiss State Secretariat for International Financial…
Apart from the enthralling Lyrica saga which began in earnest back in January, and the main trial of which recently began before Arnold J, 2015 has not witnessed many significant pharmaceutical patent decisions from the UK patents courts. Thus, three cases in this field which, rather like London buses, arrived almost simultaneously, have provided welcome…
