From the EU to Australia: latest SPC developments

Legislative developments surrounding supplementary protection certificates in the EU are moving fast, and may be catching on as far afield as Australia. Gareth Morgan of Olswang explains more.

In an article in March I highlighted that the supplementary protection certificate (SPC) regime in the EU is currently coming under scrutiny in terms of its industry sector application and the scope of the right that is granted. Recent events have progressed each of these initiatives and it is therefore necessary to update the article. The current legislative activity in the EU is also reviving discussion around similar provisions in other countries around the world.

I previously detailed the progress made on two aspects of SPC legislative development: (i) the tender for a research project that had been issued by the European Commission; and (ii) the moves afoot to dilute the SPC right through the introduction of a waiver in relation to manufacture for export during the SPC term.

On the first of those initiatives, the Commission did not get any suitable responses to its first call for tenders and presumably had to accept that the research project it was proposing could not be completed in the time and/or budget that had been proposed. The Commission then issued a revised proposal with a further call for tenders to take on a modified version of the research project. The new tender has a closing date of July 27, 2016 and the full documentation can be found on the e-tendering website used by European institutions.