According to Article 65 of the European Patent Convention ("EPC"), when the European patent granted is not drafted in one of the official languages of the EPC, any contracting state may require that…
In countries where patents and utility models (sometimes called "petty patents") co-exist, a recurrent question is which is the level of inventiveness required for utility models as opposed to…
Until recently, cases involving "Supplementary Protection Certificates" (so-called "SPCs") were relatively rare in Spain. This is due to the fact that, as a consequence of the transitional provisions…
On 30 July 2012, Commercial Court number 5 of Barcelona handed down an interesting decision that has brought again to the fore the legality of so-called "preparatory acts" (in particular, obtaining…
One of the recurrent topics in patent litigation in Spain is whether or not a Court can review the validity of a patent in the context of preliminary injunction proceedings. According to some Courts…
On 9 July 2012, Commercial Court number 2 of Barcelona dismissed a revocation action filed by two Spanish companies against patent EP 907,364, which protects a sustained-release formulation of…
One of the points of contention in cases where inventive step is discussed is which expert is better suited to express an opinion on whether or not the invention would have been obvious for the…
One of the most controversial provisions of the Spanish Patents Act is article 137.2, which states "Where the measures requested involve restrictions on the defendant's industrial or commercial…
One of the challenges of patent litigation in Spain is that our Civil Procedure Law is somewhat more formalistic than the laws of some other EU Member States, which would normally accept documents…
In recent years, the Commercial Courts of Barcelona have been called on to decide whether a claim depicting a Markush formula that did not show the stereochemistry of the compound protects only the…
