PQuestion 1
Determination and strength of the rights
The focal point of determining the scope of protection of patent claims is Article 69 EPC. This Article states that the extent of protection conferred by European patent claims is determined by the language of the claims, using the description and drawings to interpret them. That is the basic rule and Article 69 is understood using the Protocol on Interpretation of Article 69 of the EPC (the “Protocol”).
The Protocol says that, on the unitary hand, there is an attack in which the words employed in the patent are limited to their genuine import, and the patent draftsman is taken to differentiate out the claims of the patent precisely. This access offers the reasonable degree of certainty to third parties that the Protocol refers to. But it also risks an injustice to the patentee if a minor variant, they thought they had claimed is excluded as a termination. On the other hand, the phrasing of the claims could be considered just as a guideline that aims to identify a more indistinct ‘inventive concept’ protected by the patent. This advance will offer a fair protection for the patentee, but it suffers the problem of leaving third parties in doubt as to the activities that may encroach.
A patentee needs the right to be enforced at law, to determine who shall and who shall not exploit his patented invention. He holds this right for the term of the patent, provided he pays any necessary renewal or maintenance fees. The patent owner’s legal rights over his invention are usually set in a number of quite different ways. Firstly, the claims which define the monopoly may be subject to amendment or invalidation by the tribunals in respect of defects which were not discovered prior to the grant of the patent. Secondly, where the innovation is an advance or evolution of an earlier subsisting patent, the patent owner may need to hold a permit and pay royalties to the earlier patent owner. Thirdly, the patent owner’s rights are commonly set by the patent law, quite aside from the question of validity of his patent.
How broad depends on the alleged infringement, it is invalid. The trouble for the claimant is that a narrow interpretation of a claim may assist in establishing that the patent is valid, simply when it comes to infringement a broad interpretation may be needed to handle the supposed infringement. A claimant must often tread a fine course to avoid being hamstrung by its own arguments as to how the patent should be understood.
It can seem open to patent proprietors to argue for a narrow interpretation of the claim in society to save validity (even if that means the wording of the claim does not hide the alleged infringement), only that there is nonetheless infringement under the philosophical system of equivalents. It may likewise be possible for patent owners to narrow their claims in order to defend invalidity arguments, but contend that the violation is covered by the doctrine of equivalents if the amendment requires the alleged infringement outside the language of the title.
How far do they stretch?
The question of how far depends if the absence of practical purposes of use for the difference between the claim and the attached product is critically and if the protective scope is to be stretched beyond the claims. Courts don’t wish to add anything of commercial value to a patented product.
How a Swiss type claim function in biotech.
'Second medical use' for the purpose of this question refers to novel therapeutic uses of known chemical compounds. Claim 1 therefore claimed as inventive” 1 use of rapapamycin for the preparation of a medicament for inhibiting organ or tissue transport rejection in a mammal in nee there of.” The granting of patent security for second medical uses provides an important incentive for the recognition and development of solutions for unmet medical needs. Incentivizing pharmaceutical companies to get the revenues needed to fund further innovation is of long term benefit to the public. Nevertheless, price reductions facilitated by competing generic products also provides a public benefit in terms of the cost to governments who fund pharmaceuticals, and to the public who purchase them. Whether patent protection for second medical uses is permitted at all, and if so, permissible claim whether format, varies between rural areas. The orbit of any protection, also changes. Lack of harmonisation impacts both originator and generic pharmaceutical companies by creating uncertainty for both patent holders and assumed infringers.
Weak points of pharma patents
Where patents for pharmaceuticals are weak or non-existent, the "competition" is product-differentiated between the original products and "branded" pirated copies. There is no generic market. The same compound shows up as different brands which are marketed on the basis of strength of sales force, date of introduction, brand loyalty, etc. The existence of pirated copies on average, pirated products are priced higher than the brand of the product which the originator invented. This difference is almost entirely due to higher instances of communicable diseases.
Strong points of pharma patents.
Without patents, there would be no incentive for inventors to disclose their ideas and inventions to the worldwide public. Therefore, an absence of patenting laws can be tied indirectly with the thwarting of innovation and with the frustration of the disclosure of.
Where an individual who works within industry invents a patentable idea, and they have invented it through the use of the research and development money or resources available from their employers or patrons, the individual often waives their rights to claim an interest in the idea they create, since it would not have been possible to do this without the investment of the employer or sponsor.
Question 2
Facts on the critiques of the case
The approach was criticized by the UKSC taken in Catnic, Improver and Kirin-Amgen for effectively blending the two issues and suggests that characterizing the event as a single question of rendering is wrong in principle.
The UKSC went on to explain that treating issue 2 as one of interpretation will lead to a risk of wrong results in patent violation cases and it will likewise contribute to a risk of confusing the law pertaining to interpretation of documents. Accordingly, issue 2 is said to involve not merely identifying what the words in the claim would imply in their context to the notional addressee, but also considering the extent, if any, to which the scope of security afforded by the claim should go beyond that meaning.
When a new approach was put on to the facts of this case, the UKSC confirmed in relation to the first event, there was no question that the Actavis products do not infringe the patent as in no way can pemetrexed decide, pemetrexed ditromethamine or pemetrexed dipotassium be said to occur within the expression "pemetrexed disodium". However, it is the second issue that presented more difficulties of principle to the UKSC namely, what is it that causes a variety "immaterial"? While recognizing that the Improver questions provided helpful assistance in answering that inquiry, the UKSC has undertaken a critical explanation of questions 1 and 3 but has also reformulated question 2.The impingement of these new questions and the new glide path to assessing infringement of patents in the UK and the consequences for the robustness of those patents will need time to become fully valued.
I put up for the Supreme Court of scope of protection. Reasons being that:
The court of appeal did not reason on issues assessment of the technical contribution like for example numbers of possible derivatives were found to be vast and where any particulars molecules derived from rapamycin would work. The skilled person could make up a list of possible, with those to be on top. The court of appeal did not bother to discover if it required further test and to them, it was time wasting and that the skilled person was going to research again.
An interpretation of the lineaments of the patent claims and an assessment of whether, and if so how far the security should reach out beyond what follows from the technical meaning of the features-that is equivalence interpretation.
If the object of infringement has further characteristics over and above those to be launch in the patent claims, the objective can be patentable. The skilled man in the art would have construed the terms employed in the claims and often the description turns to be important.
Question 3
The importance
The aim of competition policy is to assure a fair functioning of the marketplace and, in particular, that market entry is not unduly prevented or made difficult. Anti-competitive practices include a range of actions, such as abusive exclusionary conduct by a predominant company, refused to offer certain goods or to award licenses on market conditions, charging excessive prices, vertical arrangements between providers and distributors and other arrangements among firms which run to the distortion of competition along the marketplace.
There is a relationship between patent rights and competition, which, in simple terms, can be qualified by two factors: on the one hand, patent laws aim to prevent the copying or imitation of patented goods, and thus complement competition policies in that they lead to a fair market behavior. On the other hand, competition laws may limit patent rights in that patent holders may be stopped from abusing their rights. In substance, experience proves that overly high or too low protection of both patents and competition may run to trade distortions.
Consequences for pharmaceutical companies of different principles for accessing the relationship between enabling disclosure and scope of protection for pharmaceuticals
Before being fit for marketing, medicine requires intense investments on the section of the pharmaceutical companies. Moreover, the R&D costs constitute a high entrance barrier. Companies are indeed hard to substitute if they melted from the market and fewer pharmaceutical companies translates in fewer new products being produced in the hereafter.
The question of enablement and that of reproducibility are related, yet not identical. The enabling of the invention, where the rule of presumption may be invoked, refers to the possibility of reducing the claimed invention to practice. Reproducibility, on the other hand, refers to its repeatable achievement. This means that the presumption of enablement because one way is shown to work although interrelated is distinct from the question of reproducibility. For examining disclosure thus the correct perspective to establish identity is from the disclosed features as properly identified with respect to the invention’s effect. Since to be patentable the invention must be reproducible without undue burden, the requirement applied in a strict manner should in another manner exclude the enforcement of overly broad claims – those would not meet the disclosure requirement – for instance those including embodiments not obtainable but rather envisaged by the invention. From a balanced perspective, an interpretation of the British Biogen v. Medeva decision that all members of a claimed class have to display the principle might be unduly strict for the inventor. If failure to enable one single compound in such a claim would lead to rejection the disclosure requirement would entail unreasonable practical experimenting before filing. The claim should not for that reason be invalidated for lack of sufficient disclosure.
Market-based pricing for reimbursing pharmaceuticals would be the industry’s favorite response. There is need for close collaboration between governments and the industry to deliver the much expected change towards enhanced competitiveness.
Another defining feature of the pharmaceutical sector is that there are conflicting interests between the industry and those authorized to govern the securities industry.
Another fight is the one between the Commission‟s objectives of finalizing the Single Market for pharmaceuticals and the sole right of Member States to settle their own health care policies.
Most insurers control the prescribing patterns of individual physicians, to assure the most cost-effective treatment of patients. These controls typically take the course of prescribing guidelines or controls on who may prescribe certain medicines. In a few instances the payment to the health care provider is situated, giving strong incentives to economize on pharmaceutical use along with all other health inputs. The clearest case of this is the UK “GP Fundholder” program under which the local physician is given responsibility for purchasing health care services on behalf of a group of patients in return for a fixed per-capita payment. Such systems rely on competition between physicians to ensure incentives to maintain quality are retained.
Question 4
The incentives can be made for new antibiotics and the following are the three successive steps. The foremost step involves taking a core incentive package that addresses key economic measures necessary for re-balancing the market. This core incentive package must improve the NPV of antibiotic project development, make antibiotic development possible for SMEs, encourage participation of big firms and foster synergy among all stakeholders in the securities industry. The second measure involves the core market incentive package to be amended to achieve public health goals pertaining to antibiotic stewardship and patient access to necessary antibiotics. The last step considers the package’s implementation and operational feasibility which is distinct to national context.
The length of patent protection should be either be extended or not for antibiotics as exclusivity would not preclude another efforts to develop antibiotics for similar conditions. In case, if the other company similar conditions produce a comparable or better drug, the company with the extended exclusivity might see its potential profits disappear. On the other hand, exclusivity extensions could include provisions to allow FDA to certain that companies with similar agreements not sponsor research or research dissemination activities that would promote such label uses.
Policies.
To ensure that antibiotic incentives reinforce global stewardship and access goals. Innovation must be balanced with the goals of antibiotic stewardship and affordable access to antibiotics for those in need. The concept of delinkage offers an opportunity to implement a sustainable antibiotic business model that addresses innovation, stewardship and access. Implementation of a delinkage model would require oversight from a new or existing global governing body to administer such a programme. Talking about link push and pull incentive mechanisms in a hybrid approach to stimulating antibiotic R&D. No single push or pull incentive will provide a comprehensive solution to the failing antibiotic development value chain. instead, a hybrid approach combining push and pull mechanisms is needed to allow early investment and risk sharing in antibiotic R&D, while also creating credible market commitments and incentives for developers to commercialize novel antibiotics..
To increase awareness of the antibiotic resistance problem, improve surveillance of antibiotics, improve antibiotic use in people, improve antibiotics in animals, encourage new product growth and increase resources to control antibiotic.
Conclusion.
The incentives to promote research for neglected drugs have settled into two primary types – push and pull methods- each with its own shortcomings. Push mechanisms focus on moving the supply curve by decreasing the cost and burden of risk to the developer. Spurring global innovation of new antibiotics, alternative therapies and diagnostics tools is integral to effectively combated. However, demand for new antibiotic products far outweighs supply. There are numerous scientific, regulatory and economic barriers that prevent adequate investment in antibiotic R&D. The WHO’s Consultative Experts examined various policies and incentives to promote antibiotic development. They reasoned out that free market competitor is the best mechanism to achieve affordable new products, but this should be accompanied by a blinking of R&D costs and drug price.
BIBLIOGRAPY
Domenji B, Intellectual Patents in Pharmaceuticals Coursebook, 2017,Uppsala University.
Http//www.baiili./org