Law Offices Patrinos & Kilimiris > Athens, Greece > Firm Profile

Notable Cases

PATENT CASES

CASE 1.

• MERCK SHARP & DOHME CORP.
• Pharmaceuticals
• Litigation
• Athens Court of First Instance
• June 2018
• Constantinos Kilimiris
• Manolis Metaxakis
• Patent Infringement case – Preliminary Injunction granted – Invalidity objection
• The Greek Court confirmed EPO’s case law according to which, where an independent claim is acknowledged to be new and inventive, it follows that the claims dependent thereon, are also new and inventive. On the basis of this principle, the Court ruled that, in a case where a pharma mono-product is inventive, a corresponding COMBINATION product is inventive as well.

CASE 2.

• ASTRAZENECA AB
• Pharmaceuticals
• Litigation
• Athens Court of First Instance
• October 2018
• Constantinos Kilimiris
• Manolis Metaxakis
• Patent Infringement case – Preliminary injunction granted – Requirement of urgency
• Urgency is a sine qua non condition for an injunction to be granted before the Greek Courts. In this case, it was clarified that an “imminent” circulation of the infringing pharmaceutical product occurs, when all regulatory requirements have been satisfied, such as MA and price grant, so that the MA holder may at any time thereafter launch the product concerned.

TRADEMARK CASES

CASE 1.

• PROCTER & GAMBLE
• OTC  products
• Athens Administrative Court of First Instance
• Ongoing
• Maria Kilimiris
• Manolis Metaxakis
• Opposition Proceedings – Likelihood of confusion
• The Greek Trademarks Administrative Commission handed down a Decision, under which there is likelihood of confusion, in a case where the subsequent trademark consists of a prefix and suffix, which is the suffix and prefix respectively of the earlier trademark.

CASE 2.

• HYUNDAI MOTOR CORPORATION
• Automobile Industry
• The Greek Supreme Court
• January 2018
• Maria Kilimiris
• Manolis Metaxakis
• Trademark infringement action proceedings – Parallel imports
• This is the first reported case that was decided before the Greek Supreme Court, where the EU case law was affirmed regarding an objection of abuse of process that was raised. It was held that although the defendant may raise such an objection against a right conferred by EU law, such an objection shall be considered in light of the objectives pursued by the EU provisions relating to that right. In this context, it was also held that when considering this objection, a balance should be drawn between the interests of both the claimant and the defendant.

CASE 3.

• DPDgroup International Service GmbH & Co. KG
• Courier Services
• November 2018
• Maria Kilimiris
• George Panagopoulos
• Domain name .eu dispute
• I was held that the contested domain name .eu was registered in bad faith, i.e. for the purpose of disrupting the professional activities of a competitor. It was also held that the contested domain name was intentionally used to attract Internet users for commercial gain, by creating a likelihood of confusion

Diversity/Community

At Patrinos & Kilimiris diversity, equity and inclusion are central to the internal operations of our law firm as well as to our co-operations.

Our workplace consists of and embraces different cultures, ethnicities and genders.

In recognizing the difficulties a new mother may face, we offer our employees the option of an extended maternity leave, or to more flexible working hours, in order to support them through this transition.

Other ways of ensuring greater diversity of thought behind our business is, by constantly enhancing our talent pool.

Outside of our workplace, we choose to cultivate partnerships and supplier relationships that will promote and improve inclusion and diversity for our clients but that will also set an example for our community regarding business conduct in Greece.