The Pharma and Biotech Patent Litigation Europe summit which has taken place in Amsterdam was a good opportunity to get an overview from the EPO of the state of play.

To date 17% of the EP granted patents are converted into unitary patents, and among them 5% in the pharma and biotech industries.

50% of them come from SMEs.

Quite unexpectedly, pharma and biotech patents are opted out in the same proportions as in the other technical domains with only 20% of patent applications, patents and SPCs opted out.

These proportions vary drastically from one company to the other.

In addition, 61 pharma and biotech cases are pending before the UPC*:

• 19 infringements actions;
• 2 preliminary injunctions;
• 7 revocation actions;
• 6 revocation counteractions;
• 1 action in declaration of non-infringement; and
• 1 action regarding preservative evidence.

* when several actions relates to the same case, only one case has been reported.

As of today, the Amgen vs Sanofi case is the action in the system with the highest value.

Until now, no dispute initiated by an innovator company against a generic one has been brought before the UPC.

It remains to be seen how these cases will be dealt with by the judges…