The European Patent Office has opened an online consultation on the possibility of allowing more flexibility in the timing of the examination process by offering means to postpone the examination of European patent applications. The reasons for the consultation are explained on the EPO’s website: ‘Since the launch of the Early Certainty initiative in 2014,…
The Court of Appeal overturned the Patent Court’s first instance decision concerning the validity of one of ICOS’s patents (licensed to Eli Lilly) covering a 1 to 5mg dosage form of tadalafil (Cialis®) for oral administration up to a maximum of 5mg per day for the treatment of sexual dysfunction. The Court held that the…
The FCJ confirmed that a new means of challenge based on the technical content of a document filed for the first time in the course of appeal proceedings is only to be admitted under the provisions of Section 531 paragraph 2 numbers 1 to 3 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, irrespective of whether…
The number of inventive step attacks in opposition procedures at the European Patent Office may be constrained in the future due to a recent change in the EPO Guidelines. According to David Brophy, partner at FRKelly, the change will improve efficiency, although the restrictions may also open up a new avenue for criticising decisions on…
In a recent decision The Hague Court of Appeal mixes a cocktail of SPC case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The ingredients: 1/3 Sanofi, 1/3 Boehringer and 1/3 Gilead and a sniff of Georgetown. Shake well with the skilled person’s common general knowledge and the basic patent’s description (warning: do…
A quarter-century after supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) were introduced in the European Union, there are still a number of unresolved questions as to which types of products are, in principle, eligible for SPC protection. One further important piece in this puzzle will be provided by the CJEU’s forthcoming decision in the pending referral Abraxis Bioscience…
In a Judgment dated 26 July 2018, the influential Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) rejected an overly narrow, “literalistic” interpretation of a patent claim. A claim’s terms must be interpreted according to the meaning that a person skilled in the art would give them – even if it is not the most scientifically “puristic”…
With the Danish patent litigation community being limited in numbers and the pool of legal judges and expert judges available to the Danish specialty patents court being likewise limited in numbers, The Maritime & Commercial High Court (“MCC”) – along with its appellate branches – has long since decided that judges deciding an application for…
Early on Monday 10 December 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its judgment in Wightman et al v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (C-621/18), on whether the UK can unilaterally withdraw its Brexit notification. Although of course the judgment is strictly a legal reasoning, it also comes as…
As already reported by Kluwer Patent Blog, on 5 December 2018 (case T 1063/18) the EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal 3304 found that Rule 28 (2) is contrary to article 53 of the European Patent Convention (“EPC”) and that, therefore, it does not prevent the patentability of new pepper plants and fruits with improved nutritional…
