A global pharmaceutical company (2)

We were asked to represent our client in petition for review proceedings* in front of the enlarged Board of Appeal at the EPO. An opponent in multi-party opposition proceedings were seeking to clear a path that would give them access to one of their key competitors’ more lucrative markets. As it involved one of the largest drug products in the US, this was an extremely high value case.

It is very rare for a case to go to petition for review (there have been just over 100 separate decisions, and only 20 cases are pending), and Elkington and Fife is one of the very few firms with the experience to handle a petition for review proceedings or represent their clients in front of the EPO’s enlarged board.

Elkington and Fife’s chemical group has been involved in four of these cases and of those, partner Richard Gillard has been personally involved in three, underlining our credentials in this highly specialist – but occasionally essential – type of oppositions work.

For further details of this type of work, please contact Dr Richard Gillard.

*A petition for review is a ‘third instance’ proceedings; the stage that follows opposition and appeal and a heightened stage of review which few cases reach. It is available in very limited circumstances.