Maxim Ali has analysed for Delovoy Peterburg an attempt by Polysan pharmaceutical company to ban a competitor from bringing an identical drug to market
A dispute between Polysan Scientific and Technical Pharmaceutical Firm, on the one hand, and Grotex LLC and the Ministry of Health, on the other hand, ended in the Commercial Court of Moscow. “Polysan requested that Grotex (Solopharm brand) be prohibited from marketing Flatocin and the Ministry of Health from registering the drug. According to the plaintiff, the drug in question is identical to Cytoflavin, which the company produces and which is protected by a Eurasian patent. Grotex, in turn, applied to Rospatent and later to the Intellectual Property Court to revoke the Eurasian patent for Cytoflavin. The the Intellectual Property Court sided with Grotex, which helped the manufacturer to obtain a ruling in its favour in a case pending before the the Commercial Court of Moscow as well.
Maxim Ali, Partner and Head of IP/IT practice ar Maxima Legal, told Delovoy Peterburg newspaper, that the dispute between the companies followed the classic scenario. “Polysan sued Grotex for patent infringement, and Grotex initiated a separate process to challenge the patent itself.” The examiner explained that the Intellectual Property Court, with the help of an expert, had compared Polysan’s patented medicine with those that existed before the patent application was filed. As a result, the Court concluded that there was nothing new in the Polysan patent and that the differences from previous pharmaceutical solutions were not so significant.
In analysing the course of the trial, Maxim drew the media’s attention to the fact that Polysan’s logic in its dispute with Grotex and the Ministry of Health was based on a relatively recent practice. “The right holder may not wait for the start of sales of a competitor’s patented drug, but start defending itself as soon as there is a clear threat of patent infringement. As a result, the court may satisfy the claims aimed at suppressing the threat of infringement,” the expert noted.
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