Monday, April 30, 2018

Gruber on the German Compulsory Licensing Decision

In other news, on the Kluwer Patent Blog last week Mike Gruber reported on the German Patent Court's November 21 decision ordering Merck to pay a 4% royalty to Shionogi for a compulsory license to use the drug Isentress.  I previously reported on the German Federal Supreme Court's decision affirming the grant of a compulsory license here and here.  As I have noted, the facts of the case are rather unusual, and I wouldn't overread the decisions as a broad endorsement of an expanded compulsory licensing regime.  In another odd twist, according to Mr. Gruber the patent in suit was revoked during the pendency of the litigation over a compulsory license, and thus the Patent Court's decision only sets the amount of the past royalty Merck must pay up until the date of revocation.  Note:  I haven't yet read the Patent Court's decision, which is available here.  Again, hat tip to Norman Siebrasse for bringing this post to my attention.

No comments:

Post a Comment