Almirall v. Mylan, Court of Appeal Brussels (Hof van Beroep te Brussel), 23 June 2009
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 81/851/EEC. It can also be a national marketing authorisation issued in a Member State which has not yet transposed these directives into national law.
The full text and summary of this case will be posted on http://www.KluwerIPCases.com
[...]Petition for review/Olymplus, European Patent Office (EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal), 22 July 2009
- By Ferry van Looijengoed,
for Kluwer IP Cases
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 comment on them from the European Patent Office. The Enlarged Board of Appeal agreed with Olympus, holding that – in the absence of any evidence that the EPO had sent the documents – the circumstances of the case qualify as a fundamental violation of the right to be heard and that for that reason the appeal proceedings should be re-opened. This is the first case under the new review procedure [...]
Olanzapine VI, District Court Düsseldorf (Landgericht Düsseldorf), 09 June 2009
- By Anja Lunze,
for Kluwer IP Cases
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 first instance invalidation does not automatically entail that patent infringement is not culpable if the patent is later upheld in second instance.
The full text and summary of this case will be posted on http://www.KluwerIPCases.com.
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