Patent Claiming One Medicinal Ingredient Not Found To Have Sufficient Product Specificity To Be Listed Against A Drug Containing Two Medicinal Ingredients (Intellectual Property Weekly Abstracts Bulletin: Week Of April 27, 2015)

Edited by Chantal Saunders , Beverley Moore and Adrian Howard

PATENT CASES

Patent claiming one medicinal ingredient not found to have sufficient product specificity to be listed against a drug containing two medicinal ingredients

Viiv Healthcare ULC et al. v. Teva Canada Limited et al., 2015 FCA 93

The Court of Appeal has dismissed Viiv Healthcare's appeal of a Prothonotary's decision (2014 FC 328; upheld by the Federal Court: 2014 FC 893) finding that Canadian Patent No. 2,289,753 is not eligible for listing against the combination drug KIVEXA.

The drug contains two medicinal ingredients. The '753 Patent relates to a novel salt of a single medicinal ingredient. Although the patent was added to the Patent Register in 2007, both Teva and Apotex brought motions under paragraph 6(5)(a) of the PM(NOC) Regulations arguing that the '753 Patent was not eligible for listing against KIVEXA.

Even though the Minister agreed that the patent should be listed, it was found that a patent to one medicinal ingredient does not have the degree of product specificity required to be listed against a drug containing two medicinal ingredients.

Respondent's evidence in PM(NOC) case not struck - found to be responsive and did not raise...