"One SPC per patent"? Not in Sweden!

Regular readers of The SPC Blog will recall how much interest has been generated by the question whether, following the recent round of Court of Justice rulings, there is a rule of "one SPC per patent" (see for example earlier posts here and here).

Now we have a fresh contribution on this topic from Camilla Lidén (Valea AB, Stockholm), who has written in to tell us how the Swedish Patent and Registration Office (PRV) is dealing with the situation:

"With reference to your earlier posting regarding MedImmune and Queensland and the issue with the “one SPC per patent” I just wanted to add that the PRV has actually published a notice on its homepage regarding this issue last week, after receiving several questions from the public.

PRV announced that at this stage it sees no reason for changing its practice regarding the number of supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) that can be obtained from one basic patent. One of the reasons is that this issue does not form part of the Medeva referral and, further, as far as it can tell, neither Biogen nor Medeva contain any judgment providing the basis for the conclusion that the Court should consider that the patent term for a basic patent only can be extended by one single SPC no matter how many products that are protected by the basic patent and that several of these products have been authorized for marketing as a pharmaceutical. Accordingly we conclude that, for now in Sweden, there should be no direct obstacle to obtaining several SPCs from one basic patent.

More information can be found here (currently only in Swedish)".

Many thanks, Camilla. It will be good to hear from correspondents in other countries as to whether their authorities issue similar or contradictory statements.