European SPCs Unravelled: A Practitioner’s Guide to Supplementary Protection Certificates in Europe, 2nd Edition

European SPCs Unravelled is a unique handbook that furnishes an exhaustive review of supplementary protection certificate (SPC) law in Europe, covering all substantive and procedural aspects of prosecution, enforcement and invalidation, and also SPC-related aspects of unfair competition law. Although SPCs are governed by the same substantive rules in all Member States of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA), they are national intellectual property rights. The formal requirements and procedural practices of the national patent offices granting SPCs still differ significantly, and these divergences can impact the prosecution of SPCs across Europe.

What’s in this book:

Following an overarching European chapter, which addresses general considerations and the relevant European Union law, including the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice (CJEU), this book includes detailed national chapters for all European states that provide SPCs:  

• the twenty-seven EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden);
• the EEA/EFTA states Norway and Iceland; and 
• the United Kingdom, Switzerland/Liechtenstein, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and North Macedonia.

The contributors to this book, all seasoned experts in the field of SPCs in their respective jurisdictions, offer hands-on guidance and detailed insights into the most pertinent SPC-related topics of practical and strategic relevance.

How this will help you:

This one-of-a-kind handbook, currently in its second edition, provides invaluable assistance to IP practitioners in devising successful pan-European SPC filing and litigation strategies. Its practice-oriented approach, combined with a country-by-country format where all chapters follow the same structure, makes it easy to compare the national practices and the respective national case law of the different European countries.