On June 4, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court issued a decision
that finalized the litigation between KRKA, d.d., Novo mesto
(Slovenia), and AstraZeneca AB (Sweden) on invention patent
2643764.
About half a year earlier, on January 2, 2024, the Italian
Supreme Court confirmed in its final decision that Pfizer has to
pay over €13.4 million in compensation to the Italian Health
Ministry and Finance Ministry for abusing its dominant position in
the drug market.
Though these two litigations were about different matters and
happened in two different jurisdictions, they had one common issue
– the practice of filing divisional applications from early
filed divisional applications was reconsidered. While the Russian
Supreme Court decision indeed ended the local discussions regarding
divisional-from-divisional practice, confirming its admissibility,
the Italian Supreme Court looked at such practice from another
perspective and suggested a "to be continued"
ellipsis.
