The High Court of Australia handed down its decision
yesterday in the appeal by AstraZeneca (AstraZeneca AB v Apotex
Pty Ltd (2015) HCA 30), against last year's ruling by the
Full Court of the Federal Court, affirming the Full Court's
decision that AstraZeneca's low dose rosuvastatin patent was
obvious.
The High Court has unanimously sided with the Full Court,
finding that there was no error in its reasoning in applying the
test for inventive step. In particular, the Full Court's
construction of section 7(3) of the Patents Act 1990 (Cth)
was affirmed.
The High Court side-stepped any decision on the 'starting
point' approach, on the basis that it was not necessary to
consider the issue in light of its finding on the construction of
s7(3). This approach was previously adopted by an earlier Full
Court in Apotex Pty Ltd v Sanofi-Aventis [2009]
FCAFC 134 under the Patents Act 1952. It allowed
information contained in the relevant patent specification, but
which did
