Review of The Changes In Patent Filing Strategies For The Pharmaceuticals And Biotech Industry In Europe

Extract

---

Review of The Changes In Patent Filing Strategies For The Pharmaceuticals And Biotech Industry In Europe

Article by Stephanie Michiels

This article appeared in the August 2002 issue of Bio-Science Law Review.

Review Of The Changes In Patent Filing Strategies For The Pharmaceuticals And Biotech Industry In Europe In Light Of The Recent Opinion G2/98 1 From The European Patent Office In Respect Of The Requirement For Claiming Priority For The Same Invention.

Introduction

In any patent filing strategy, the benefits associated with filing as quickly as possible to secure the earliest possible date must be carefully balanced with the requirement to generate sufficient technical information to support the patent application. The right of priority has the effect that the date of an earlier application (generally a national application) counts as the date of filing of later applications (usually an International application) filed within a year from the date of filing of the first application. Although disclosures of the invention during the priority year actually occur before the filing date of the later application, they can be overcome by relying on the priority date. In highly competitive and evolutionary areas in particular, it is thus critical to secure a valid priority date for the invention eventually claimed and upon which it can be relied. The validity of the priority right depends on both formal and substantive requirements, including the requirement for claiming in the later application the 'same invention' as that disclosed in the earlier application. The question as to what extent a later filed E...

See the full content of this document

---