With case C-471/14, the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified that the relevant date to be taken into account for the calculation of the term of SPCs is the date of notification of the marketing authorization. Moreover, in Case C-492/16 issued on December 20th, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified how SPCs granted taking into account a wrong marketing authorization date and, hence, granted for a wrong term, should be treated in view of C-471/14

Now, we inform that the SPTO has taken due note of Case C-492/16 and, hence has issued a notice pointing out its new criteria in connection with the correction of the term of the granted SPCs. The PPTO had already adopted a similar criteria in view of decision C-471/14 of the Court of Justice of the European Union for new SPC requests, but we are still waiting on the criteria that will be applied in view of the Case C-492/16 for the granted SPC in force.

  • The SPTO will take into account the requests filed by proprietors to modify or correct the term of a granted SPC as long as said SPC is in force. We are still waiting on the decision of the PPTO regarding this modification or correction of the term of granted SPC, but it is expected to follow the decision of the SPTO in the near future.
  • It seems that the SPTO and the PPTO will not correct the term of the granted SPCs ex officio.

In case you have any question, please, do not hesitate to contact us.