Belgium, Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Enforcement, Equivalents, Extent of Protection, Injunction, Scope of protection

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The Antwerp Commercial Court dismissed Merck’s claim for injunctive relief against Teva, ruling that Teva’s montelukast-based generic medicines do not infringe Merck’s European patent (EP 0 737 186) with respect to an improved process for preparation of the active ingredient montelukast, either literally or by equivalents. A full summary of this case has been published…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Inventive step, Spain, Validity

(Clifford Chance)/

The Commercial Court Number 4 of Barcelona found that although obtaining the price for generic versions of Calcium Atorvastatin by two Spanish companies from the Ministry of Health is not an act of infringement as such, the acts carried out by the defendants constituted a threat of infringement that justified a prohibition to enter the…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

In view of the need for a consistent approach to interpretation of Council Regulation (EEC) 1768/92, the Court of Appeal has referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) questions on the meaning of the term ‘the first authorisation to place the product on the market’ in Article 13(1); in particular whether the first authorisation…

Case Law, Enforcement, Netherlands

(Brinkhof)/

In this patent case the Supreme Court of the Netherlands referred two prejudicial questions to the European Court of Justice. The first question relates to the interpretation of Article 1 of the Brussels I Regulation. The second question is whether Article 14 of the Enforcement Directive is applicable on a procedure on the recognition and…

Case Law, Chemical Engineering, Extent of Protection, Scope of protection, Spain

(Clifford Chance)/

In this judgment the Barcelona Court of Appeal concluded that any ‘preparatory acts’ (for example, submitting samples) conducted prior to the introduction in Spain of the ‘Bolar Clause’, as required by Directive 2004/27, would have been already excluded from the realm of patent infringement by the Experimental Use Exception. The Court rejected a request to…

Amendments, Antibodies, Biologics, Case Law, EPC

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This decision of the Board of Appeal covers two questions of interest: 1) May an Opposition Division include an obiter dictum in its decision? (The answer in this case is yes.) 2) To what extent is amendment in the background section of the description allowed in a divisional application? A full summary of this case…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Extent of Protection, Netherlands, Scope of protection, Validity

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The District Court of The Hague finds that the generic products of the defendants fall under the scope of protection of both of Mundipharma’s patents, which are related to controlled release oxycodone formulations. According to the District Court, the scope of protection of the patents is not limited to products wherein all oxycodone is within…

Case Law, Electrical Engineering, EPC, Exceptions to patentability

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The appellant in this case filed a statement of grounds against the decision of the examining division to refuse a patent application. For the main request this statement only stated that it was believed that the application met the requirements of the European Patent Convention and maintained the arguments presented in the examination procedure. For…

Case Law, EPC, Extension of subject matter, Mechanical Engineering

(V.O.)/

A claim violates Article 123(2) EPC when an added claim term has two reasonable interpretations, one of which violates article 123(2) EPC. An amendment selecting the interpretation that does not violate Article 123(2) is not allowed during opposition because of Article 123(3) EPC. In the view of the Board the proprietor should not be able…

Biologics, Case Law, EPC, Procedure

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1. According to the EPC, the right to object to a member of a Board of Appeal or of the Enlarged Board of Appeal is reserved to the party to the proceedings who suspects partiality in such a member. 2. It remains nevertheless that pursuant to Article 4(1) RPEBA, if the Enlarged Board of Appeal…