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CJEU hands down significant judgments relating to SPCs
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has recently handed down a number of significant judgments and reasoned orders in answer to questions referred to it by the UK courts concerning the conditions to be met for obtaining a supplementary protection certificate (SPC). In particular, the CJEU has ruled on the requirements that a basic patent needs to meet in order for it to be considered as protecting, for the purposes of obtaining an SPC, one or more active ingredients of an authorised medicinal product. Nevertheless, quite how these rulings should be applied in relation to many types of situation remains to be seen.
This article looks at the background to the referrals, the questions that were referred, the CJEU’s answers and the early jurisprudence in which the rulings of the CJEU have been considered and applied. Practice points that emerge based on this recent case law are also discussed.
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