The EU Trade Secrets Directive (2016/943) (the “Directive”), the implementation deadline for which is this month - June 2018, was drafted with the intention of harmonising the law governing trade secrets and providing a common standard of protection for businesses across Europe against the unlawful acquisition, disclosure and use of trade secrets. To date the protection of trade secrets has varied widely amongst member states which has made enforcement on an EU-wide basis complicated and costly. Read more

In a potential boost for the EU generics/biosimilars industry the EU Commission has adopted a proposal to introduce an ‘export manufacturing waiver’ into the EU Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) regime.  The waiver would allow generics and biosimilars to be manufactured within the EU during the term of the SPC without the consent of the SPC owner, purely for export to countries where patent protection never existed or has expired. Currently, such manufacture would infringe the SPC. Read more

The European Court of Justice (CJEU) has held that a parallel importer of wound dressings was free to add a small label to the outer packaging of the goods without infringing the brand-owner’s trade mark. It follows from this that the parallel trader was not obliged to notify the brand owner of the modified packaging as is usually required in pharmaceutical repackaging cases. Read more

The general rule is that if patent infringement is found the patentee will be entitled to an injunction to prevent future infringement, and in the vast majority of cases this is what happens in practice.  The injunction is, however, a discretionary remedy.  Two recent cases in the life sciences space have illustrated the flexibility of the English Court in tailoring the injunction to take matters of public interest into account. Read more

US firm Kilpatrick Townsend considers the role of the International Trade Commission in Pharmaceutical Disputes. Read more