The eagerly-awaited judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the SPC referral Abraxis Bioscience (C-443/17) has been handed down today. In the case underlying this referral, the UK IPO had refused an SPC application filed by Abraxis Bioscience for the product “paclitaxel formulated as albumin-bound nanoparticles” (nab-paclitaxel; marketed as Abraxane®)…
Claims for methods of administering beta-alanine to increase muscles’ working capacity were valid treatment claims, not merely directed to natural laws. Claims for the supplement products and means of making them were directed to specific formulations, not natural phenomena. Case date: 15 March 2019 Case number: No. 2018-129 Court: United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit…
In Italy, legislation to adapt the patent system to the Unitary Patent will enter into force on 27 March 2019. This means legislative preparations in Italy for the start of the UP and UPC have been completed. The Legislative Decree of 19 February 2019 to incorporate the provisions of the Unitary Patent Regulation (EU 1257/2012)…
… that is the question in recent ‘Dutch discovery’ proceedings in a patent dispute between beer giants Anheuser-Busch Inbev (‘ABI’) and Heineken. Well, sort of: the legal question was if ABI would be granted access to documentation seized at Heineken’s premises in the Netherlands. The Hague Court’s Preliminary Measures Judge’s answer did all but refresh…
The Constitutional Court held that the 30-day period to initiate mandatory arbitration proceedings against applicants for authorization to introduce generic medicines onto the market is a final (or expiration) term. Case date: 10 April 2018 Case number: 187/2018, 41/2017 Court: Constitutional Court of Portugal A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP…
It seems to be a more and more realistic scenario that the UK may leave the European Union on March 29, 2019 without an agreement. A lot has been written about the effect of such a “hard Brexit” on trade in general and –more interesting to us working in the patent field- on the future…
On 12 February 2019, the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) issued an interesting judgment clarifying the role played by “drawings” for the purpose of interpreting the scope of protection of a patent. This judgment has reversed a judgment of 12 December 2017 from Barcelona Commercial Court number 1 which, according to the Court of…
The Finnish Supreme Court resolved in February 2019 on the matter of whether or not the preconditions for precautionary measures were at hand in a patent law infringement case. Firstly, the Court interpreted the Act regarding Preservation of Evidence in Civil Cases Concerning Intellectual Property Rights (344/2000, as amended). Moreover, the Court analysed the information…
The German Federal Supreme Court has decided on what is necessary to establish a legal interest in a declaratory judgment of non-infringement under German law. The Supreme Court’s decision, which we will discuss in this post, is available in German (X ZR 62/16 – “Slug Bait”). The case concerned the declaration of non-infringement (“DNI”) of…
The results of the EPO’s online user consultation on a procedural option for postponing examination of a European patent application have now been published and are available here (pdf). To cut a long story short, users’ opinions are quite divided. The overall result is surprisingly similar to the result of the Brexit referendum (52% in…
