A niche blog dedicated to the issues that arise when supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) extend patents beyond their normal life -- and to the respective positions of patent owners, investors, competitors and consumers. The blog also addresses wider issues that may be of interest or use to those involved in the extension of patent rights. You can email The SPC Blog here

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Plant protection patents and emamectin benzoate -- more news

Yesterday The SPC Blog posted this news from Hungary concerning a ruling of the Metropolitan Court of 12 January 2012 ("Plant SPC from earlier veterinary SPC? Yes, it can be done", submitted by James Horgan).

Today we are fortunate to have received some further information from our friend Alice de Pastors who writes:
To complete information on the Hungarian Plant Protection SPC for emamectin benzoate I wanted to point out three other Plant Protection SPCs for emamectin benzoate in Europe: Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands. 

In Italy and Belgium the SPCs refer to the Plant Protection first MA in The Netherlands, 13260 of December 4, 2009 (AFFIRM®) but in The Netherlands to the UK veterinary MA VM00201/453 MA (Slice®) with a date of March 9, 2010".
Thanks, Alice!

2 comments:

Andreas Schmitt said...

Regarding the Dutch SPC: From the correspondence mentioned in the Dutch patent register, the first authorization date taken into account for the calculation of the SPC term is also the Dutch authorization (the entry regarding the first EU authorization date in the register is erroneous the veterinary UK authorization VM: 00201/4153 is dated from 14/01/2000)
See: http://register.octrooicentrum.nl/register/docviewer/350046_CERT/E1112CCFA2E3C4P1/2/1/1 and http://register.octrooicentrum.nl/register/docviewer/350046_CERT/E1112CCFA2E3C4P1/1/1/1

Zsuzsanna Buzas said...

I'd like to inform you, that in Hungary there was no earlier (or later) veterinary SPC for emamectin benzoate.
Thus the subject of the said Hungarian Court decision was not "Can you get a plant SPC where there is an earlier veterinary SPC?"
Instead this case was about the question, which MA should be taken as the first MA in the Community (the earlier veterinary or a later plant protection MA ) for the purposes of calculation of the duration- Art 13-when the application concernes only plant protection product SPC.
Kind regards