Regardless of whether someone intends to enforce their own supplementary protection certificate (SPC) or finds themself at the receiving end of an SPC infringement action, the question which grounds of invalidity justify the revocation of an SPC may become highly relevant. This question is all the more intriguing in light of the CJEU’s corresponding case…
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…
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…
Why would anyone want to have their own supplementary protection certificate (SPC) revoked? – The answer is, quite simply, Article 3(c). Under Article 3(c) of Regulation (EC) 469/2009 on SPCs for medicinal products (and, likewise, under Article 3(1)(c) of Regulation (EC) 1610/96 on SPCs for plant protection products), an SPC shall be granted only if…
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has clarified when a product is ‘protected by a basic patent’ within the meaning of article 3(a) of the SPC Regulation. In a long awaited preliminary ruling, the CJEU decided last week that: ‘Article 3(a) of Regulation No 469/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May…
Establishing a unitary SPC is one of the recommendations of the study carried out by the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition for the European Commission. Either an (existing or a future) EU authority or the European Patent Office can be charged with granting these unitary SPCs. According to the study, the choice between…
The European Commission has proposed to introduce an ‘export manufacturing waiver’ to Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) to ‘help Europe’s pharmaceutical companies tap into fast-growing global markets and foster jobs, growth and investments in the EU’. According to a press release of 28 May 2018, ‘Supplementary Protection Certificates extend patent protection for medicinal products which must…
The European Commission has taken the first step towards creating a European Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC). A Call for Tender for a ‘Study on the legal aspects of the supplementary protection certificates in EU’ was published last month. The deadline for the Call for Tender is 4 February 2016. After signing a contract, the study…
The lack of provisions on Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) is seen as a major flaw in the new Unitary Patent (UP) system. Initiatives have been taken to address this issue and recently the European Commission put it on its action list. Why doesn’t the UP Regulation include a provision for SPCs? Anja Lunze, attorney at…
On 12 March 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) published the judgment announced in our last blog in Case C-577/13, in response to some of the preliminary questions referred by the High Court of Justice (England and Wales), Chancery Division (Patents Court) in a case between Actavis Group EHF, Actavis UK…
