Daiichi: SPC validity not an issue

The SPC Blog reported a few days ago that Case C-414/11 Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd, currently before the Court of Justice of the European Union, concerned among other things a supplementary protection certificate, this being the Greek SPC for levofloxacin hemihydrate, and its infringement by the Greek generics company Demo AEVE.

We have since heard from Constantinos Kilimiris (Patrinos & Kilimiris, Athens) that the litigation in question does not involve any objections to the validity of the SPC. He explains

"As the patent on which the SPC was based was granted in 1986, Demo had argued that the product claims contained in the patent cannot be enforced because of the prohibition of patenting pharmaceutical products per se, which was in force in Greece at the time of filing. 

We had argued, on behalf of Daiichi, that the provisions of Articles 27 and 70.2 of TRIPS prevail over the relevant legislation and that full protection should be available based on the product claims. 

The court found that there is a matter of interpretation of Articles 27 and 70 of TRIPS, which constitute an integral part of community law and decided to refer three questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

I would be happy to provide more information if anyone is interested".

Many thanks, Constantinos, for your clarification.