On the basis of a use patent, Aventis filed for interim relief against Hospira at the Bailiff’s Court (Enforcement court) at Lyngby City Court in Denmark. The claim was based on DK/EP 0593656 and the defence raised by Hospira was invalidity of the invoked right.
I have to start this with a simple introduction into container technology: This is an intermediate bulk container (IBC): In principle such an IBC consists of three elements, the base, the outer steel cage and the inner bottle. The decisive issue in various patent infringement cases was whether the replacement of the bottle amounts to…
One of the new question marks introduced by Directive 2004/48 (the so-called “Enforcement Directive”) is what amount of indicia is required to prove that an act of infringement is “imminent” for the purposes of obtaining a preliminary injunction aimed at prohibiting such act. Although the declared goal of the Enforcement Directive was to strengthen the…
The questions referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal were answered as follows: 1. A claimed imaging method, in which, when carried out, maintaining the life and health of the subject is important and which comprises or encompasses an invasive step representing a substantial physical intervention on the body which requires professional medical expertise to…
In the case at hand the Board held that the European Patent Convention does not contain any specific provision for refusing a European patent application for unallowable double patenting. According to the Board neither Article 125 EPC nor Article 60 EPC could serve as a legal basis for such refusal thereby explicitly disagreeing with the…
George Washington once speculated whether it could be said that an axe which had received three new handles and two new heads could be said to be the original axe. Whilst not providing the answer to this long-standing paradox, the recent judgment of Floyd J. in Schütz v Werit [2010] EWHC 660 does provide an…
On 18 June 2009 the IP Chamber of the Milan Court issued its official interpretation on whether the filing of an MA application for a generic drug when the patent is still in force results an act of infringement. This subject that had already been dealt with, with a different outcome, almost three years earlier…
There have been some interesting developments lately on the international IP piracy front relating to the so-called manufacturing fiction and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). These will also have an impact on patent cases. I will summarize the main points.
During the past 9 months in Denmark, the pharmaceuticals manufacturer and patentee, H. Lundbeck A/S, has obtained two interlocutory injunctions in Denmark against wholesalers marketing generic versions of Escitalopram. In both cases H. Lundbeck A/S argued successfully that the patent-in-suit fulfilled the conditions of the Danish Patents Act § 64a (similar to the Art 35…
The District Court of The Hague granted Mundipharma a provisional injunction against Sandoz for infringement of its patent for a controlled release oxycodon formulation. The District Court suspended its decision on the validity and infringement of the patent in the main action until a final decision has been rendered in the opposition proceedings. The Court…
