Spain: Accord and Sandoz vs Astrazeneca, Supreme Court of Spain, First Civil Law Chamber, 334/2016, 20 May 2016

For the first time, the Spanish Supreme Court made far-reaching observations on key issues of the assessment of inventive step and, in particular, on a) the reformulation of the "objective technical problem" as defined in the patent's specification, b) the limits to the combination of prior art documents and c) the professional qualifications required for experts to testify as "persons skilled in the art" in Spanish revocation proceedings.

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.