A patent is a document, issued, upon application, by a government office (or a regional office acting for several countries), which describes an invention and creates a legal situation in which the patented invention can normally only be exploited (manufactured, used, sold, imported) with the authorization of the holder of the patent. ‘Invention’ means a solution to a specific problem in the field of technology. An invention may relate to a product or a process. The protection conferred by the patent is limited in time, generally 20 years. In a number of countries, inventions are also protectable through registration of a ‘utility model’ or ‘short-term patent’.
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…
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…
by Adam Lacy and Thorsten Bausch As European patent professionals are all too aware, the Boards of Appeal of the EPO (BOA) have a huge amount of power, particularly over the rights of patentees. In EPO opposition proceedings, the BOA have the final say on whether to revoke a patent across all of the EPC…
Looking back at this blog in 2018 from a bird’s eye perspective, I cannot resist the feeling that one of the most popular topics has been musing about the UPC’s future and speculating about the timing and the outcome of the decision by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) on Dr. Stjerna’s constitutional complaint. Even Stjerna himself has…
Today, after nine months of waiting, the decision of the UK Supreme Court in the pregabalin litigation was handed down. Like Brexit and the nation, it is clear that the Supreme Court Judges were divided on several crucial issues. In this post, we will not attempt to give a detailed analysis of the decision but…
Over the last decade, one of the topics typically discussed in patent proceedings in Spain has been to what extent the validity of the patent may be analysed in preliminary injunction proceedings. In the mid-2000s, the Judges in charge of the Commercial Courts at the time, with jurisdiction to deal with patent cases in Barcelona,…
In a decision issued this summer, the Swiss Federal Patent Court had the opportunity to comment on the catalogue of grounds for invalidity which can be brought against a Swiss SPC. The Federal Patent Court issued a PI based on Genzyme Corporation’s Swiss SPC for sevelamer, although it was unclear whether the Swiss Institute of…
Just a few months before the CJEU’s judgment in C-121/17 Teva UK Ltd and Others v Gilead Sciences Inc. came out a the Metropolitan Court of Budapest handed down a decision regarding Merck Sharp and Dohme Corp’s (MSD) application for an SPC re the combination of ezetimibe and rosuvastatin. The Hungarian court which regularly deals…
AstraZeneca had filed an application for interim relief based on two patents, DK/EP 1250138 T4 (“EP 138”) and DK/EP 2266573 T3 (“EP 573”) against Sandoz, which conceded that to the extent that the patents were valid, the Sandoz product “Fulvestrant Sandoz” infringed upon the two patents. Sandoz took the position, however, that the patents should…
Have a great weekend, everyone 🙂
