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Romanian courts have already set a trend by issuing several definitive decisions that have led to supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) being granted for products that, in light of the latest opinions delivered by the Advocate General Mengozzi, should not qualify for such protection in Romania. However, even if a battle is lost for generic companies, the war is far from being over.

The District Administrative Court in Warsaw in its judgment on March 28 2011 dismissed a complaint against the decision of the Polish Patent Office refusing to grant protection rights for the trade mark Villa Nova.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) has issued for comments proposed revised rules for inter partes cases as part of its wish to provide speedy, high-quality and effective legal remedies and be the forum of choice to resolve IP disputes. These cases include the following: oppositions to applications for the registration of marks; petitions to cancel the registrations of marks, patents, utility model registrations, industrial design registrations, or any claim or parts of a claim, and registrations of topography or layout design of integrated circuits; and petitions for compulsory licensing. The salient points of the proposed rules are:

In two recent decisions of the Technical Boards of Appeal of the EPO, the recording of the transfer of a European patent played an important role in the admissibility of the appeal. Indeed, these decisions show the significance of accurately recording a transfer in the European Register and elucidate the requirements for validly doing so.

Under the amendment made to Articles 168 and 170 of the Health Supplies Regulation, which omitted the requirement that pharmaceutical companies must maintain a manufacturing plant in Mexico, the Mexican government granted the first marketing authorisation through the Health Ministry (The Federal Commission for Protection against Sanitary Risk COFEPRIS) to international foreign manufactures (Takeda International Company Limited and Amgen).

When Israel drug makers Unipharm and Trima started manufacturing generic versions of SmithKline Beecham's drug Avandia, SKB filed for an injunction and damages. Unipharm and Trima claimed that the patent (IL 106904) was invalid in light of a European patent previously filed by SKB that was published before the priority date.

In a recent case, the Court of Appeals in Thessaloniki considered whether there is a likelihood of confusion between an earlier CTM that covers goods of classes 11 (illuminating devices), 20 (children's furniture) and 25 (clothing) (figure 1) and a subsequent mark used to designate prams, bicycles for children and related goods (falling within class 12) (figure 2).

According to both the German Patent Act and the EPC, methods for treatment of the human body by surgery or therapy are excluded from patentability. While the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the EPO has already provided some guidelines (in G1/07), the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) had to wait some time for an opportunity to comment on this topic(BGH, X ZB 9/09).

Earlier articles showed how The Wayback Machine (www.archive.org) may be used to establish a date of public availability for a particular internet page, which may be usable in legal proceedings. However, certain pitfalls exist and need to be avoided in order for the evidence to withstand the scrutiny of the court or of the other party.

The EPO's statistics report an all-time filing high with some 234,000 new European patent applications filed in 2010. According to the EPO's website, this increase is partly a result of the economic recovery and partly a side-effect of "the EPO's introduction of new regulations which led applicants to file certain applications before the end of 2010". It is assumed that the latter comment hints at the new 24-months time limit under Rule 36(1) EPC and the associated transitional provision.