By Legislative Decree no. 28 of 4 March 2010, the Italian legislator introduced obligatory mediation into the Italian legal system. In particular, Art. 5 provides that, as of 20 March 2011, in a…
By a decision of 20 May 2009, the Italian Supreme Court clarified the limits of the so called pharmacy exception contemplated by Italian patent law, according to which the extemporaneous preparation…
In a case involving the US multinational Mars and an Italian producer of rice (Riseria Monferrato), the Court of Appeal of Turin, by decision of 19 November 2008, tackled – one of the few cases in…
The Court of Appeal of Milan established a principle whereby named inventors must be called in revocation actions and, if they are not, proceedings may not reach the stage of decision. This principle…
By decision no. 9291 of 19 April 2010, the Italian Supreme Court clarified that the sale of a single unit of the patented product is novelty destroying under Art. 46 of the Italian IP Code, which…
Two recent decisions of the Italian Supreme Court (no. 21835 of 14 October 2009 and no. 23414 of 4 November 2009) have tackled the issue of sufficiency in a peculiar manner, departing from previous…
By decision no. 6967/2009 of 14 May 2009, the IP Chamber of the Court of Milan found for the invalidity of a patent claiming the second medical use of a known pharmaceutical product for lack of…
On 18 June 2009 the IP Chamber of the Milan Court issued its official interpretation on whether the filing of an MA application for a generic drug when the patent is still in force results an act of…
Whether patent holders marketing branded drugs may assume that the very act of filing of an MA application by generic companies result in patent infringement is one of the hottest issues at the…
