Applied Filters
Case review: Merck defeated in BMS patent row
In March, Merck unsuccessfully tried to invalidate a patent owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb covering metastatic skin cancer treatment. Ernest Linek of Banner & Witcoff reviews the arguments and the court’s ruling.
The interplay between CRISPR and the Biotech Directive
No patent application directed to CRISPR has yet fallen foul of the EU’s Biotech Directive on the basis of the human embryo use exception, but the technology is still in its nascent stage. Ashley Roughton of Nabarro reports.
A second bite at the cherry
Despite a large body of EPO case law accepting second medical use claims that recite a novel technical effect, all eyes are on how courts in EPC member states will deal with infringement cases arising from such patents. Joachim Wachenfeld and Oswin Ridderbusch of Vossius & Partner report.
Waiving goodbye to SPC rights
The European Commission is considering whether ‘export waivers’ should be introduced in order to partly relax the rules on supplementary protection certificates. Gareth Morgan of Olswang explains more.
How to succeed in the business of biotech patentability
Following several high-profile decisions by the US Supreme Court making it harder to patent biotech inventions, parties should follow several best practices to give their products the best chance of being patented. Kathryn Hull of Gordon Rees provides some tips.
Healthy farms, healthy planet
Intellectual property rights should be used to help valorise agricultural biodiversity and traditional knowledge for the benefit of the global population as well as small farming communities around the world, says Graham Dutfield of the University of Leeds.
A state of grace
A grace period would give German inventors more flexibility to deal with different rules set by scientific publications and patenting procedures, and allow them to seek patent rights without the fear of prior disclosure, as Michael Kahnert of BIO Deutschland reports.
Jawbone v Fitbit: will fitness trackers be the next IP war?
The smartphone wars may have slowed down but many smaller high-tech companies continue to assert their IP rights against competitors, as the fitness tracker battle shows. Fabio Marino and Luc Dahlin of McDermott Will & Emery report.
IPR and biopharma patents: what the statistics show
Fewer IPR petitions are instituted against biotech and pharma patents, and there is a higher survival rate of instituted claims in final written decisions compared to all technical fields combined. Melissa Gibson and Ruben Munoz of Akin Gump analyse the statistics.
Biosimilars: Twisting and turning
In July the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sought to clarify the rules on the ‘patent dance’, but with confusion reigning there are likely to be more twists and turns to come, as LSIPR finds out.
