EU trumps Member States over TRIPS

Case C‑414/11, Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd, Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH v DEMO Anonimos Viomikhaniki kai Emporiki Etairia Farmakon, a reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union from the Greek Polimeles Protodikio Athinon, resulted in a ruling last week.

While this case does involve an SPC (for levofloxacin hemihydrate, marketed as Tavanic), the reference was not so much about SPCs as about the relationship of EU law and the law of EU Member States to the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The CJEU concluded that TRIPS does not have retrospective effect in EU Member States and that it falls within the exclusive competence of the EU and not the Member States.

To get a swift summary of the decision, you can speed-read through the Curia press release here.

Tour of European Patent Offices - Greece

The SPC Blog continues its tour of European patent office websites and this time, it's Greece.

The colourful Greek Patent Office website is accessible here for the original site and here for the English language site- and you may have time to grab a cup of coffee before it finally comes onto your screen.

You can search the patent register here for patents and SPCs active substances. If the patent you're looking at has a corresponding SPC application or granted SPC, you should be able to click your way to the corresponding SPC site.