The Brussels Court of Appeal ruled that, in calculating the period of validity of an SPC, the ‘first authorisation to place the product on the market in the Community’, within the meaning of Article 13 of the SPC Regulation, does not necessarily need to be an authorisation issued in accordance with Directive 65/55/EEC or Directive…
In the case at hand, Olympus filed a petition for review against the decision of the Board of Appeal to revoke Olympus’ patent. Olympus argued that it had had no opportunity to comment on the grounds for this decision as it had never received the statement of the grounds of appeal and the invitation to…
The District Court Düsseldorf clarified its case law regarding the requirement of a complete translation of patents into the German language and how to deal with errors in such translations. Besides, the Court held that the patent is to be considered valid as long as there is no binding decision on its invalidity. Hence, a…
The Administrative Law Division of the Council of State holds that the District Court has rightfully found that the Patent Office was not obligated to issue a Supplementary Protection Certificate for the medicinal product cetuximab. Article 73 (1) of the Dutch Patents Act 1995 on indirect infringement, does not in all circumstances protect the patentee…
This case concerns a referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal regarding the interpretation of the term ‘pending application’ in the wording of Rule 25(1) EPC 1973. In the appealed decision from the receiving section, the receiving section held that from the date of the refusal by an examining division an application was no longer…
The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s finding that Aerotel’s Patent relating to a method of making pre-paid landline telephone calls was invalid for want of inventive step over the principal prior art (the WATS system). Having made this finding it was unnecessary to consider Aerotel’s other grounds of appeal.Further, Aerotel’s arguments of commercial…
During appeal proceedings, the appellant argued lack of inventive step on the basis of public prior use of a composition for making the claimed product. The prior use appeared to relate to an ordinary commercial transaction. The patentee argued that the offer, sale and delivery of the product were only for test purposes. The Board…
The Hague District Court nullified Sepracor’s patent for compositions for treating allergic disorders using (-) cetirizine (levociterizine) on the basis of lack of inventive step. The Court considered that the person skilled in the art knows that the pharmaceutical efficacy of a racemic mixture generally can be attributed to one of the enantiomers. At the…
The claims of the patent in suit related to a memory for sensing sub-groups of memory cells that required the activation of word line segments and corresponding sets of sense amplifiers in combination. The patentee argued that from one of the objectives of the invention mentioned in the original application, the skilled person could derive…
The Court of Appeals Karlsruhe has decided that under specific circumstances the enforcement by a non-manufacturing licensing company of an injunction based on a standard-essential patent may be provisionally suspended against security payment by the defendant until the decision of the appeal. Although as a general rule of German procedural law the interest of a…
