Advocate General Issues SPC Opinion In Teva V Gilead

On 25 April, Advocate General Wathelet issued his opinion on the interpretation of Article 3(a) SPC Regulation in the referral from the UK Patents Court in Teva & ors v Gilead following a hearing before the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the EU in February 2018. The Advocate General's opinion is that a product will be protected by a basic patent if, at the priority date, it would have been obvious to a person skilled in the art that the active ingredient in question was 'specifically and precisely identifiable' in the wording of the claims of the basic patent. In the case of a combination of active ingredients, each active ingredient in that combination must be 'specifically, precisely and individually identifiable' in the wording of the claims of the basic patent. No date has yet been given for the decision of the CJEU itself, but we will report on this in due course.