This case concerned an active ingredient for antibiotics whose patents had expired in most of European markets but not in Italy. The patent holder, Merck & CO. Inc. (Merck Sharp & Dohme; hereinafter “MSD”) refused to grant a license requested by an Italian company, ACS Dobfar S.p.A.

This case concerned the protection of pharmaceutical test data under European Union (EU) legislation. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) interpreted EU law as authorizing generic producers to rely on the test data submitted by an originator firm once the original product has been in the market for at least six or ten years (depending on national law), as long as the generic product is essentially similar to the original product.

In the IMS Health case, the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter “CJEU”) clarified the ‘exceptional circumstances’ test used to determine whether a refusal to license an intellectual property right (hereinafter “IPR”) constitutes an abuse of a dominant position under Art. 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The Hazel Tau case provides an example of how competition law can be used to facilitate access to affordable medicines.

The dispute concerns the questions whether the seizure of goods in transit as border measures for enforcement of intellectual property rights is compatible with the TRIPS Agreement and GATT rules on freedom of transit, among others.  Although a request for consultation was made by two complainants, the dispute was amicably resolved between the parties.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that patents are unenforceable in case of inequitable conduct before the patent office.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit addressed the issue of inequitable conduct during patent prosecution. Upon affirming the majority of a district court’s findings of inequitable conduct, it remanded the case for a determination of whether the incidents of inequitable conduct justified the sanction of rendering the patent unenforceable.

The Supreme Court in this case decided that patent holders do not have an automatic right to a permanent injunction in case of patent infringement. Instead, the decision whether or not to grant an injunction or an alternative remedy has to be decided on a case-by-case basis taking into account a traditional four-factor test.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided that reverse payment settlement agreements are not immune from antitrust scrutiny. It opted for the antitrust “rule of reason” approach in order to determine whether such agreements violate antitrust law, rejecting thereby both the “scope of patent” test and the “presumptive illegality” approach.

The case concerns liability of parties for anticompetitive behavior, more specifically for pay-for-delay agreements. Even though Barr’s anticompetitive agreement with Warner Chilcott was later dissolved, the District Court upheld the FTC’s complaint, which sought to prevent Barr from engaging in similar conduct in the future.