by Giuliana Miglierini

The intersecting pathways of revision of the pharmaceutical and intellectual property legislations recently marked the adoption of the EU Parliament’s position on the new unitary Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) system, parallel to the recast of the current SPC Regulation (EC) 469/2009. The unitary SPC system will apply also to plant protection products (under different regulations), and it will allow for the obtainment of up to 5 years IP protection beyond the life of the patent.

The new system will complement the unitary patent system, as part of the overall “EU patent package” announced in 2023, and which also includes the proposed regulation on compulsory licensing (we wrote about this last week) and the one on standard essential patents. According to the EU Parliament, the procedure on unitary SPCs will now stop after the European elections.

A report on the potential impact of the unitary supplementary protection certificates on access to health technologies, prepared by the Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs for the Parliament’s Committee for Legal Affairs, is also available.

The main amendments to the Commission’s proposal

The text adopted by the Parliament on 28 February 2024 (together with the legislative resolution on the recast of the SPC regulation) refers to the proposed new regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 (EU trademark), Regulation (EC) 1901/2006 (medicinal products for paediatric use) and Regulation (EU) 608/2013 (custom enforcement of intellectual property rights).

The report of the rapporteur, Tiemo Wölken, specifies the entities or people that provided him with input in the preparation of the document, among which are also EFPIA and Medicines for Europe.

The amended text highlights the importance of pharmaceutical research in ensuring the EU’s competitiveness, but also the difficulty of establishing a direct link between this and the rules aimed to support research in innovative medicinal products. The point is that “authorised medicines from third countries are equally eligible to receive all Union incentives, just as Union-based innovative companies can equally benefit from incentives in third countries”. This may lead to companies moving their activities in other countries offering greater protection.

The adopted text better specifies cases for which manufacturing is possible in the EU in presence of a still valid unitary SPC, i.e. export to a third country, where protection does not exist or has expired, or storing the product in order to be ready to enter the EU market upon expiry of the corresponding SPC (the so-called EU “day-one” entry).

To obtain granting of the unitary SPC, the product should fall within the scope of one or more claims of the basic patent. To this instance, the Parliament made specific reference to the description and drawings of the patent, and to the skilled-on-the-art “person’s general knowledge in the relevant field and of the prior art at the filing date or priority date of the basic patent”. The same applies also to active ingredients in combination products, each of which needs to be specifically identifiable. The approved text removes any reference to the concept of “therapeutic equivalence”.

The Parliament specified that the information on granted unitary SPCs provided in the register should not be used for patent linkage or other administrative decisions related to generics or biosimilars. The text also clarifies how to consider “economically linked” parties, that are not entitled to obtain multiple SPCs for the same product.

A single procedure and a digital-by-default process

The main objective of the unitary SPC system is to allow the submission of a single application to obtain extension of the IP protection in all European countries which are part of the EU’s unitary patent system. The digital-by-default principle should guide the entire procedure leading to the grant of a unitary SPC, starting from the submission of the application to the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) using a format to be made available by the EUIPO itself. Combined applications for supplementary protection certificates should also be made possible.

The application for a unitary SPC would be based on an already existing centralised marketing authorisation issued by EMA. Information on any direct public financial support received for research related to the development of the product for which the SPC is requested should be also provided.

In charge of the examination would be a new SPC division created within the EUIPO. The examination would be run by an examiner from the Office and two examiners from national competent authorities, with sufficient expertise (at least one examiner with a minimum of five years’ experience in the examination of patents and supplementary protection certificates).

The examination opinion should be issued within six months of the publication of the application. A new amendment has been introduced to allow for an expedited examination (4 months) in case, for example, of imminent expiry of the basic patent. Should multiple oppositions be filed against an examination opinion, they should be jointly dealt with by the EUIPO, with issuing of a single decision. The Parliament has maintained the pre-grant opposition procedure, which attracted many criticisms as it might result in increased uncertainty for patentees.

From a market perspective, access to products covered by unitary SPCs should be favoured in countries where the right-holder does not have the intention to launch them, by mean of voluntary agreements to licence the corresponding rights in those markets. A new Recital underlines the importance of a timely entry of generics and biosimilars in the UE market in order to increase competition, reduce prices and ensure sustainability of national healthcare systems and access to affordable medicines.

Comments from Medicines for Europe

The European association of the generic and biosimilar industry, Medicines for Europe, published a note highlighting the possible impact the new unitary SPC may have, due to the significant geographical extension of the IP protection also in countries where the concerned medicines are not normally launched or launched very late.

It would be very important to prevent a possible misuse of the system, is the request of the industrial association. To this instance, the safeguards identified by the Parliament for the examination of applications before the granting of a unitary SPC are considered adequate, as for transparency and quality of the procedures. Furthermore, according to Medicines for Europe, the pre-grant opposition mechanism included in the Parliament’s position should prove useful to prevent invalid (non-innovative) SPCs from being enforced and ultimately invalidated in Court.

The explicit ban of the patent linkage is also considered very important, and it should be coupled to transparency of SPC expiry dates in the register so to ensure these data would not be misused to implement unlawful and anti-competitive patent linkage strategies.

“The position of the Parliament goes in the right direction and rightfully bans patent linkage. The pre-grant opposition will ensure a timely grant of SPCs for innovative drugs (a maximum 14 months or 12 with an expedited procedure) and prevent monopoly extensions for those drugs that do not have a legal right to an SPC because they are not innovative. The ban of patent linkage will serve access to medicines by preventing pricing and reimbursement or tender procedure delays for generic and biosimilar medicines at SPC expiry. Medicines for Europe will engage constructively with the EU institutions to ensure the most efficient, quality, and fair SPC system possible for the future.”, said Adrian van den Hoven, Director General of Medicines for Europe, commenting on the report.

You can find here more comments on the approved and deleted amendments.