How Will Brexit Affect Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs)?

SPCs are an important additional form of protection, particularly for the pharmaceutical industry, by which the normal maximum 20 year term of patents relating to medicinal or plant protection products can effectively be extended, usually by up to 5 years, in order to compensate to some extent for the time taken to obtain authorisation to place the relevant product on the market.

Whilst SPC applications are examined and granted nationally by the patent offices of individual EU member states, SPCs in the member states, including the UK, derive their legal basis from EU regulations that have effect across the European Economic Area (EEA). Following Brexit, the EU regulations relating to SPCs will no longer automatically apply to the UK, and an alternative legal basis for an equivalent UK SPC system will therefore need to be put in place for obtaining SPC protection in the UK, and transitional legislation enacted to recognise existing SPC rights. How a UK SPC system