Source: http://patentblog.kluweriplaw.com/2014/10/30/barcelona-court-of-appeal-publishes-most-surprising-judgment-on-trips-the-role-of-the-cjeu-and-art-70-7-of-trips/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 22:37:17+00:00

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Over the last decade, in some of the countries that did not introduce patent protection for pharmaceutical products until 1992, there has been an intense debate which has included, inter alia, the following two questions: (i) whether or not under Articles 70.2 and 27.1 of TRIPS, a patent granted following an application claiming the invention both of the process of manufacture of a pharmaceutical product and of the pharmaceutical product as such, but granted solely in relation to the process of manufacture, does, by reason of the rules set out in Articles 27 and 70 of TRIPS, have to be regarded from the entry into force of that Agreement as covering the invention of that pharmaceutical product; and (ii) whether or not Article 70.7 of TRIPS obliged WTO Member States to permit the modification of patents that were pending when TRIPS came into force to claim the enhanced protection (i.e. the product) introduced by TRIPS.
For readers’ benefit, it should be recalled that Article 70.7 of TRIPS reads as follows.
It should be clarified that the question contains a typo, since TRIPS did not come into force in “1992” but in “1995”, as correctly explained in § 16 of the Judgment.
It was indeed rather odd for the Greek Court to pose the same question about the situation of patents already granted before the TRIPS came into force, because the patent on the Greek Court’s table in these two new cases had not been granted (i.e. they were pending) when TRIPS came into force. However, this was of course for the Greek Court to assess. According to the CJEU case law interpreting Article 267 of the TFEU, the CJEU must confine itself to answering the specific questions asked by the referring Court. It is the latter’s responsibility to assess the relevance of the question in the context of the factual and legal framework of the dispute before the national Court.
Therefore, although the patent on the Greek Court’s table was pending when TRIPS came into force, the CJEU was under the obligation to answer the specific question asked by the Greek Court which, for reasons that only the Greek Court will know, did not mention pending patents but granted patents.
In view of the text of the question referred by the Greek Court, I am sure that readers will understand the surprise caused by a Judgment dated 22 October 2014 published last Monday, in which Barcelona Court of Appeal reached the conclusion that, in its two Rulings of 30 January 2014, the CJEU would have provided an answer to the second question announced at the beginning of this blog, i.e., whether or not Article 70.7 of TRIPS obliged WTO Member States to permit the modification of patents that were pending when TRIPS came into force to claim the enhanced protection (i.e. the product) introduced by TRIPS.
Clearly, the CJEU could not have provided an answer to that question simply because it was not asked by the Greek Court in the first place.
“Although the scope of such decision may cast some legal doubt, given that, in our opinion, the facts involved in the Rulings dated 30 January 2014 have notable differences compared to the facts involved in the Judgment dated 18 July 2013, the objective fact is that, the Court having asked about the protection that the TRIPS Agreement confers on a patent applied for when the Reservation to the EPC was in force and prior to the entry into force of such Agreement, and granted thereafter with product and process claims, the Court replies as follows: “A patent obtained following an application claiming the invention both of the process of manufacture of a pharmaceutical product and of the pharmaceutical product as such, but granted solely in relation to the process of manufacture, must not, by reason of the rules set out in Articles 27 and 70 of the TRIPs Agreement, be regarded, as from the date of entry into force of that agreement, as covering the invention of that pharmaceutical product”.
As the Judgment of 22 October 2014 correctly explains, the facts of the two cases decided by the two Rulings of 30 January 2014 had “notable differences” with respect to the case decided by the Judgment of 18 July 2013, because the former dealt with patent applications that were pending when TRIPS came into force. However, the crux of the matter is that, for reasons that only the Greek Court will know, it did not ask whether or not Article 70 of TRIPS obliged WTO Member States to permit the modification of patents that were pending when TRIPS came into force to claim the enhanced protection (i.e. the product) introduced by TRIPS. It asked the exact same question as in the Daiichi case, which dealt with a patent granted in 1986, almost 10 years before TRIPS came into force.
Therefore, the “deduction” that the Judgment of 22 October 2014 makes on pages 27-31 in the sense that the CJEU would have answered a question (pending patents) different from the one (granted patents) submitted by the Greek Court is a rather risky deduction to make, as it amounts to attributing to the CJEU behaviour contrary to its own case law.
Construing these suspension points as the CJEU having affirmed that Article 70.7 of TRIPS (a provision not cited, let alone interpreted in any of these three CJEU’s decisions) did not oblige WTO Member States to permit the modification of patents that were pending when TRIPS came into force to claim the enhanced protection (i.e. the product) introduced by TRIPS, is certainly another long shot. For it would appear to be clear that a Decision explicitly omitting the citation and interpretation of a specific legal provision cannot provide any guidance for a national Court on how that legal provision should be interpreted, let alone constitute a solid basis to leave aside the interpretation agreed by the EU Commission, the WTO Secretariat and the Spanish Government in 1997.
“Mr Cardedera subsequently provided information on the meeting held on 4 April, attended by the Director General for Foreign Trade, the Director General for Pharmacy and the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office, at which it was agreed that applications for process patents dating from before 7 October 1992 should, where requested, be processed in such a way that a product patent was granted, this being the form of protection afforded by Spanish law on that date. The terms of the TRIPS Agreement were thus complied with, since this is the most robust legal interpretation which is also favoured by both the European Commission and the Secretary General of the WTO, who have been informally consulted by Spain.
This interpretation has since been endorsed by both the Civil and the Administrative Chambers of the Spanish Supreme Court.
Mr. Renato Ruggiero, who at that time was the WTO Director General and who was visiting the Spanish Government, even attended the meeting on 4 April 1997. He was delighted to see that the Spanish Government was approving the right measures to comply with its obligations under TRIPS. To suggest that, due to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009 and the Daiichi Judgment, Spanish Courts should now undo the measures approved in 1997 to comply with Spain’s obligations under TRIPS, would certainly have a paradoxical result, i.e. Spain would instantly fail to fulfil its obligations under TRIPS, notwithstanding the Spanish Government and Spanish Courts‘ firm efforts to respect them.
At a time when everybody was expecting Barcelona Court of Appeal, one of the most experienced and respected Spanish Courts in patent matters, to cast more light on the TRIPS debate after the imbroglio caused by Daiichi and its saga, it has surprised the patent community with a decision that, for the reasons explained above, is clearly at odds with the function that the TFEU assigns to the CJEU in the context of Article 267.
As always, the Supreme Court will have the last say.

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