Court upholds Polish Patent Office's "no" to QLAIRA

The SPC Blog has heard today from our good friend in Poland, Katarzyna Zbierska (Partner, Legal Counsellor, Kochański Zięba Rąpała i Partnerzy, Warsaw) about a recent reasoned ruling of the Warsaw District Administrative Court in Warsaw of 5 August 2011 (case no. VI SA/ Wa 87/11). In this ruling the court upheld a decision of the Polish Patent Office to refuse the grant of an SPC for a product distributed as the QLAIRA contraceptive (Bayer). Katarzyna explains that the ruling is worthy of mention as there are not many SPC cases in Poland, and it concerns the contentious issue of interpretation of a “product” definition.

The details of the case are described in the bulletin of her law firm's Intellectual Property Department, which you can access here.