The French Patent Office cooks up controversy

The SPC Blog has obtained information from a source in France about several ongoing cases before the Cour d'Appel de Paris regarding appeals to decisions by the Institut National de la Propriété Intellectuelle (INPI - the French Intellectual Property Office) rejecting SPC applications based on "the same previously market authorised product":

The French PTO appears to have taken a very unhelpful and certainly
"technically unaware" stance, and are applying the ECJ decisions of Yissum,
etc, with gusto.

In essence the cases revolve around the distinction between what was marketed
as essentially a sort of "primordial soup", for example, a mix of enzymes or
cell extract where one enzyme is predominant although others present in the soup
influence its activity (this is not the subject-matter of the cases involved),
and the later and subsequently patented isolation of one particular active
substance over all the others which was found to have an enhanced desired
pharmaceutical effect and was stabler in the absence of all the junk that
hindered it previously. Unfortunately, the name of the "primordal soup" product
as previously authorised for marketing happens to be the same as the specific
name of the isolated substance, and so the INPI has refused the SPC applications
on the grounds that it is the "same product".

It should be interesting to see what the French courts make of it providing
the cases go all the way to trial, especially since there are political
ramifications involved, i.e. one or more state run/owned/shared entities have a
financial stake in the matter.