Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPC)

The book

Supplementary protection certificates (SPC) de facto extend the term of patents for pharmaceutical products by a maximum of five and a half years, i.e. the certificate becomes effective at a time when the respective pharmaceutical is widely known on the market and thus generates the maximum revenue. This explains the enormous economic value of the SPC. The legal basis for the SPC for medicinal products is a European Regulation. The SPC is based upon European or national patents.
SPC protect some of the most valuable products in the pharmaceutical industry, where each day of additional protection may be worth millions of euros. At the same time, the requirements for obtaining such protection, the scope of protection etc. are highly disputed and have been the subject of numerous decisions of the CJEU. Despite this, there is still only a rather limited amount of literature on SPCs which is in stark contrast to the economic relevance of SPCs.

Beyond providing an overview of the European legislation and the CJEU case-law on SPCs, the book also depicts and summarizes national law and jurisprudence on leading pharmaceutical markets such as Germany, France and the United Kingdom as well as The Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland.

The advantages at a glance

practice oriented
comprehensive
in English