EPLAW Patent Blog

EU - Cameron blocks EU patent deal

Cameron blocks EU patent deal

By Alex Barker in Brussels

David Cameron on Thursday night blocked a deal over the location of Europe’s new patent court after failing to secure last-minute demands that would have delighted eurosceptic backbenchers.

At a Brussels summit, Germany, France and the UK attempted to resolve their bitter eight-month fight over the seat of the new court, which is the last obstacle to introducing a more streamlined intellectual property regime.

Read the entire article at www.ft.com here.

UK – Smith & Nephew v. Convatec

Smith & Nephew plc v. Convatec Technologies Inc., High Court, Chancery Division, Patents Court, London, UK, 13 June 2012, [2012] EWHC 1602 (Pat)
 
The Patents Court held Convatec’s amended patent to be valid.
 
Smith & Nephew (S&N) applied to revoke Convatec’s patent, EP (UK) 1 343 510, concerning methods of making a wound dressing which used silver as an antimicrobial agent and which was photostable.
 
S&N argued that the patent was invalid on various grounds and in the course of the proceedings Convatec conceded that the unamended patent was invalid and applied to amend. Convatec argued that claim 1 in its amended form was valid. S&N disputed that the amendments were allowable but in any event argued that amended claim 1 was invalid for obviousness over two items of prior art (Gibbins and Kreidl).
 
HHJ Birss QC (sitting as a judge of the High Court) rejected S&N’s allegation that the proposed amendments constituted added matter and held the amendments to be allowable. The judge rejected the obviousness attack based on Gibbins as it would only invalidate claim 1 with the benefit of hindsight. The judge also rejected the obviousness attack based on Kreidl as it required the act of an inventive person to put into effect in such a way as to invalidate the patent.
 
Read the judgment in English here.

Head note: Robert Fitt

 

NL - Reprise v. Ferring

Reprise biopharmaceuticals, LLC et al. v Ferring B.V., The Hague District Court, 13 June 2012, case no./docket no. 400255/HA ZA 11-2202.

Reprise alleges that Ferring's patent claims subject-matter which was invented by Dr. Fein. Dr. Fein is now one of the owners of Reprise and in the past he worked together with Ferring. Reprise now claims the partial ownership of the patent.

UK - Mylan v. Yeda

Generics (UK) Limited v. (1) Yeda Research & Development Co. Ltd (2) Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, Court of Appeal, London, UK, 31 May 2012, [2012] EWCA Civ 726

The Court of Appeal allowed an appeal by Mylan (the trading name of Generics (UK) Ltd) against the decision of the Patents Court to grant an injunction to prevent Mylan’s Director of Intellectual Property from acting in a patent action involving the parties.

Mylan applied for a declaration of non-infringement and revocation of Yeda’s patent EP (UK) 0 762 888, under which Teva was the exclusive licensee. The patent related to Copaxone, a drug used to treat multiple sclerosis. During the course of the proceedings, Mylan sought an order that their Director of Intellectual Property should be allowed access to Teva’s disclosure documents subject to providing confidentiality undertakings.

EPO – Biological inventions - Enlarged Board of Appeal faced the second time with the tomato case

EPO, Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.04, interlocutory decision of 31 May 2012 in case T 1242/06 - Tomatoes/STATE OF ISRAEL

The following point of law has been referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal:

“1. Can the exclusion of essentially biological processes for the production of plants in Article 53 (b) EPC have a negative effect on the allowability of a product claim directed to plants or plant material such as a fruit?

2. In particular, is a claim directed to plants or plant material other than a plant variety allowable even if the only method available at the filing date for generating the claimed subject-matter is an essentially biological process for the production of plants disclosed in the patent application?

3. Is it of relevance in the context of questions 1 and 2 that the protection conferred by the product claim encompasses the generation of the claimed product by means of an essentially biological process for the production of plants excluded as such under Article 53 (b) EPC.”

Those who may have thought that after the Enlarged Board’s of Appeal (EBA) decisions in the broccoli and tomato cases G 2/07 and G 1/08 (see the report of 16/12/2010 in this blog) the relevant legal questions concerning patentable subject-matter had been clarified, have got it wrong. In both cases the proprietors reacted to the EBA’s decision by deleting all process claims.