On 21st December 2015, The Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of AstraZeneca AB & others v Laboratorios Alter and & others (EDJ 2015/244058).

AstraZeneca had filed an action against several generic companies for infringement of an SPC for the product quetaipina: The SPC’s basic patent was EP 228.

EP 228 was validated in Spain when product claims were not yet allowed; the validated patent has a separate set of claims without any product claims.

Relying on Art. 27 and 70 of the TRIPS Agreement and in order to add product claims, AstraZeneca resorted to the modification of the translation of EP 228.

Read the entire summary in English here.
Read the judgment (in Spanish) here.

Head note and summary: Luis Fernández-Novoa, HOYNG ROKH MONEGIER