Posted by: Yen Thieu in Worldwide patent, Vietnam, prosecution, Pharmaceuticals, PCT national stage, Patents, Patent Prosecution, Patent filing, patent, novelty, law, intellectual property, examination, EPO, Drug patents, claims on
May 13, 2009
Patentability of medical use claims in Vietnam has been debated for long time. At certain points of time, a number of Vietnamese patents were granted with medical use claims (first use or second use) following the practice at EPO. However, with the advent of the Code of Intellectual Property 2005, which came into force on July 1, 2006, the question again became hotly arguing.
In applying the Code of Intellectual Property 2005, medical use claims, just like any other use claims, are rejected in Vietnam for failure to be either products or processes, and hence subject to exclusion from patent protection in the country. Patent applicants, especially those in pharmaceutical industries, and their patent agents choose to either: (1) convert the second medical use claims (Swiss type, as named
Section 5, clauses 44-48 in the Israeli Patent Law enables an applicant having a granted patent to file one or more "supplementary patents" associated with the original granted patent, if the supplementary patent discloses an improvement of the invention claimed in the original patent.
A supplementary patent does not require having an inventive step or even novelty over the original granted patent it is associated with, and therefore makes it easier for the applicant to add new embodiments to his inventions without having to go through prosecution again.
An original granted patent may have multiple supplementary patents associated therewith and the law does not limit the number of associated supplementary patents that can be filed.
There are however several limitation to supplementary
In the recently published Registrar Circular No. M.N. 69, dated 24 December 2008 (the "Circular"), the Registrar clarifies the interpretation of "publication in Israel" for the purpose of the novelty requirement in designs.
In practice it appears that, although the language of the law requires "local novelty", following the publication of the Circular, the definition of "local" has now been expanded to also include dated publications available over the Internet.
Background:
According to Section 30 of the Patents and Designs Ordinance (the "Ordinance"), one of the eligibility requirements for designs is that it has "not been published in Israel" prior to the application date.
Until now, design applications were examined vis-à-vis design applications filed in Israel before their filing date.
The
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