Friday Miscellany

There are a number of news items that have been basking in the inbox of this blogger, but have not made a post of their own, and so here is a round-up of miscellaneous tidbits.

Dutch Court aligns with Mr Justice Arnold on Swiss claims
Katfriends Jaap Bremer and Marleen van den Horst of BarentsKrans (who acted for Sun Pharma) informed the IPKat last week:

Today we received the long awaited decision of the The Hague District Court in the final relief proceedings between Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (Europe) B.V. and. Novartis AG & Novartis GmbH regarding the validity and (in)direct infringement of EP 0296 689, Novartis’ Swiss type 2nd medical use patent covering the use of zoledronate in the preparation of a medicament for the treatment of osteoporosis.
 In its interim decision, the District Court rejected Novartis’ indirect infringement claims, following the interpretation of the Swiss type 2nd medical use claim by the UK High Court in the pregabalin case. In so deciding, the District Court distanced itself from the decision of the The Hague Court of Appeal (PI proceedings) of 27 January 2015 to grant Novartis’ claim for an injunction based on indirect infringement.
The District Court decided that Novartis shall be allowed to further substantiate its claims based on direct infringement in a statement to be submitted in January 2016, to which Sun Pharma may respond.

The decision being "distanced" was reported by IPKat here, and in the pregabalin litigation Arnold J disagreed with it (reported by IPKat here); on the other hand the Court of Appeal relied on it to reinstate the indirect infringement claim.  Now, subject to further appeals, there seems to be growing a possible consensus that infringement of a Swiss claim by a generic manufacturer cannot generally be by indirect infringement - it must be direct infringement or nothing.

Nagoya Protocol is Complete in EU
Also belated, for which apologies, is news that the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1866 for the Nagoya Protocol has been enacted and is in force (see earlier Katpost here).  It is appropriate to report this late, because the Implementing Regulation was itself late - the sanctions in the main Regulation (EU) No 511/2014 came into effect from 12 October 2015, and so the Implementing Regulation needed to be in place by the same date.  Actually, Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/1866 was passed on 13 October 2015 and came into force on 9 November 2015.  The Implementing Regulation sets out in greater detail what researchers who utilise genetic material need to do in order to comply with their obligation (set out in the main Regulation) to ensure that the material that they utilise has been accessed in accordance with the principles set out in the Nagoya Protocol of prior informed consent from the providing country, and benefit sharing in the results of the research.  A guidance document that was hoped for at the same time is still delayed.  This Kat hopes to return to this and write a little more on the scope of the Implementing Regulation in due course.

INTA Trademark Scholarship Symposium - deadline extended
The International Trademark Association (“INTA”) will host the Seventh Annual Trademark Scholarship Symposium on Tuesday, May 24, 2016 during the 138th INTA Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida on May 21-25, 2016.  The deadline to submit abstracts (approximately 300 words, describing a current trademark or unfair competition scholarship project to be sent to Julie Cromer Young at jcromer@tjsl.edu and James Michael Faier at jmfaier@faier.com|) to apply to take part in the Symposium has been extended to Friday 11 December 2015.  The IPKat urges budding trade mark scholars to consider applying.  For more information, see INTA’s webpage about the Academic Series for Professors.

IP Inclusive Launched
The IPKat has heard from a number of sources that IP Inclusive, which was established to promote equality, diversity and inclusion within the IP sector (previously reported by IPKat here), held a launch event on Monday.  Reports on the event so far seem a little thin, but you can read about it here on WIPR.

Unitary Patent - renewal fee distribution key agreed (but not revealed)
It has been announced on the European Commission website that the distribution key for renewal fees for Unitary Patents has been agreed between the 26 EU countries involved.  What has been revealed is:

50% of fees will be retained by the EPO (European Patent Office) while the remainder (minus an administrative charge) will be distributed among the participating countries according to a formula that takes account of the GDP and the number of applications filed from that country.

This is frustratingly vague and adds very little to what the Unitary Patent Regulation prescribes in Article 13. What the IPKat was hoping to find out is what percentage each country is planned to receive.  Is this going to be revealed, or will it remain a secret?