As reported in teh blog on 9 March, 2011, ratiopharm has managed on appeal to the High Court to overturn the first instance decision to grant a PI against ratiopharm which had initiated its own distribution of escitalopram products after the dominant wholesaler in Denmark was injuncted and the other wholesalers followed suit. The hearing…
On 2 March 2011 the Barcelona Court of Appeal handed down a judgment reversing a decision from Commercial Court number 4 of Barcelona, which had rejected a “lis pendens” defence pleaded by the owner of patent EP 409.281 against a revocation action filed by L.A. et altri based on lack of inventive step. In its…
While in the past the German courts generally presumed that exposing a product on a trade fair constituted an infringing offer and, hence, a danger of repetition, the District Court of Mannheim recently raised the burden of demonstration and proof for patent owners. Following the (vague) reasoning of the Federal Supreme Court in a trademark…
According to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) the envisaged Unified Patent Litigation System (UPLS) is not compatible with the law of the European Union. The main debate is about the influence of the ECJ in patent matters. However, the patent communities in the Member States of the European Union do not seem to be keen on extending the ECJ’s jurisdiction in patent matters and patent practitioners in EPC member states that are not members of the EU are still less.
In a judgment issued on September 28, 2010, the Court of First Instance of Paris held that a dosage regime is effectively a method of treatment and is, as such, excluded from patentability in view of Article 53c of EPC 2000. In this particular case, the use of finasteride for the treatment of androgenic alopecia…
The company governed by the laws of Switzerland, Novartis AG, is the holder of patent EP 0 443 983 entitled “Acyl compounds”, whose subject-matter is a group of antihypertensive compounds, including valsartan, pharmaceutical preparations containing them and processes for the preparation of these compounds. , This patent, filed on 12 February 1991, was to have expired on 12 February 2011. However, Novartis…
If a party decides to participate in another party’s challenge to a patent so it may share in the benefits of a victory, it may well be ordered to share the costs burden of losing. Actavis was therefore ordered to pay half of Eli Lilly’s costs of successfully defending the revocation actions brought by Dr…
The Danish patentee H. Lundbeck A/S has during the past few years enforced its patent rights to the active pharmaceutical ingredient Escitalopram in several jurisdictions as also reported in several cases on the Kluwer patent blog. As previously reported (blog entry 3 May 2010), Lundbeck A/S has also succesfully enforced its patent rights in relation…
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has now issued its long awaited Opinion 1/09 on the draft agreement concerning the creation of a unified patent litigation system (UPLS). As is well known, this draft agreement drew on many provisions introduced for the first time by the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) and…
Summary judgment decisions are unusual in patent cases in the UK. The court will generally only be prepared to determine a claim for patent infringement in very clear cases which do not require oral evidence to be heard. In order to succeed on an application for summary judgment, the applicant must demonstrate that the respondent…
