Case C-482/07

AHP Manufacturing BV

v

Bureau voor de Industriële Eigendom

(Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank ’s-Gravenhage)

(Patent law – Proprietary medicinal products – Regulations (EEC) No 1768/92 and (EC) No 1610/96 – Supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products – Conditions for granting certificates to two or more holders of basic patents for the same product – Clarification on the existence of pending applications)

Summary of the Judgment

Approximation of laws – Uniform legislation – Industrial and commercial property – Patent right – Supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products

(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1610/96, Art. 3(2); Council Regulation No 1768/92, Art. 3(c))

Article 3(c) of Regulation No 1768/92 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products, which provides that a certificate is to be granted if, in the Member State in which the application is submitted and at the date of that application, the product has not already been the subject of a certificate, considered in the light of the second sentence of Article 3(2) of Regulation No 1610/96 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products, which states that where two or more applications concerning the same product and emanating from two or more holders of different patents are pending, one certificate for this product may be issued to each of these holders, must be interpreted as not precluding the grant of a supplementary protection certificate to the holder of a basic patent for a product for which, at the time the certificate application is submitted, one or more certificates have already been granted to one or more holders of one or more other basic patents.

(see para. 43, operative part)