Medinol v. Abbott, District Court The Hague (Rechtbank Den Haag), 23 December 2009
The District Court of The Hague held that Abbott does not infringe Medinol’s patent. According to the Court there is also no reason to accept infringement by equivalence, since the meander patterns in the infringing embodiment fulfill another function than the claimed ‘second meander patterns’ as further explained in the patent in suit. This means that the stents of Abbott cannot be considered equivalent or substantially identical as to fall within the scope of Medinol’s patent.
The full text and summary of this case will be posted on http://www.KluwerIPCases.com.
[...]Dr Reddy’s v. Eli Lilly, Court of Appeal Civil Division (Court of Appeal Civil Division), 18 December 2009
- By Robert Burrows,
for Kluwer IP Cases
The case concerned the validity of a ‘selection patent’. The Court of Appeal held that there is no special approach to be adopted in determining the validity of selection patents and that UK law should be consistent with EPO jurisprudence. For novelty, a prior disclosure of a large class of compounds does not take away the novelty of a claim to a specific compound unless the prior art provides an ‘individualised description’ of the compound claimed. For inventive step, the normal rules apply. The Court of Appeal clarified that a selection which makes a real technical advance (rather than a mere arbitrary selection) is patentable.
The full text and summary of this case will be posted [...]
Neural Progenitor Cells, Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof), 17 December 2009
- By Anja Lunze,
for Kluwer IP Cases
The Federal Court of Justice presented the following questions to the European Court of Justice: 1. How should the term ‘human embryos’ in Article 6 para. 2 lit. c Directive 98/44 EC be understood? a) Are all development stages of human life from the fertilisation of an egg cell included or are additional conditions required such as the achievement of a specific stage of development? b) Are the following organisms included: (1) unfertilised human egg cells, in which a cell nucleus from an advanced human cell is implanted (2) unfertilised human egg cells, which were stimulated to divide and develop by parthenogenesis c) Are stem cells included, which were extracted from human embryos? 2. How [...]
