The CJEU – for supplementary protection certificates, who needs it?

24 October 2014

Author: Mike Snodin
SCRIP Regulatory Affairs (24 October 2014)

This article, which was first published by SCRIP Regulatory Affairs on 24 October 2014, explains why patent offices in Europe do not need to seek guidance from the Court of Justice of the EU in order to decide to award longer terms to some pharmaceutical supplementary protection certificates (SPCs). In this regard, the article sets out the compelling arguments in favour of the use of the Notification Date for setting the term of SPCs based upon centralised Marketing Authorisations, and explains why contrary arguments put forward by certain patent offices do not stand up to serious scrutiny.