Second Medical Use

On 28 May 2015, the English Court of Appeal issued a ruling in the on-going Lyrica saga which, although almost certainly not representing the last word on the topic, took a markedly different…

By Mark Schweizer, Reinhard Oertli and Simon Holzer The Swiss lawmaker plans to introduce a new exemption from patent protection for physicians and pharmacies. The new exemptions aims to protect…

Marleen H J van den Hors (BarentsKrans in the Netherlands) dealt with the interesting question of enforcement of second medical use patents and suggested that regulatory changes might be required to…

At the end of January, we reported the Warner-Lambert v Actavis decision of 21 January 2015, in which Arnold J refused to grant Warner-Lambert interim relief in relation to an apprehension of patent…

Most readers will know that so-called Swiss form claims (“Use of drug X in the manufacture of a medicament for the treatment of disease Y”) were first proposed by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the …

Regular readers of the Kluwer patent blog may recall that in April 2014, the English Patents Court revoked two patents relating to trastuzumab, the active ingredient in Herceptin, which is marketed…

The development of Herceptin (trastuzumab) in the late 1980s and 1990s is one of the most remarkable advances in the treatment of breast cancer. The story of the drug and its pioneer, the “velvet…

The Court of Appeal Düsseldorf held that the offering of certain products by the defendants was not covered by the scope of the patent due to the specific "Swiss type" wording, which does not grant…

Regarding the interpretation of "offering for the purpose" (of making, using etc.) in the sense of Article 53(1)(b) Dutch Patent Act, the Supreme Court held that offering has to be construed broadly…