INFORMATION FROM THE CONTRACTING / EXTENSION STATES
NL Netherlands
Decision of the Hoge Raad (Supreme Court) dated 18 December 1992
(Pharbita and Medicopharma v. ICI)1
Headword: Atenolol
Article 30(1), (3) Patents Act (NL) Article 27(b) CPC 1989
Keyword: "Use of a patented drug to obtain documentation for an official authorisation procedure does not come under the privilege accorded by patent law to actsdone for experimental purposes"2
Headnote
1. Under Article 30(3) of the Patents Act (NL), which corresponds to Article 27(b) CPC,acts done for experimental purposes are permitted by patent law only if and to the extent that they are warranted by the aim of the experiment in question. The experiment must accordingly be of an exclusively scientific nature or else be done exclusively for a purpose- such as the further development of the art - corresponding to that of the Patents Act.
2. Throughout the term of a drug patent, the preparation of drug specimens in accordance with the patent- ed process and the making available of samples of the drug to an authority for the purposes of licensing under drugs legislation is not covered by the exemption for experiments.
NL 1/94
1 Translation of the official headnote. The full text of the judgment is reported in Bijblad Industriële Eigen- dom 1993, 310, and an extract in German in GRUR Int. 1993, 887.
2 See the "Ethofumesat" decision of the German Feder- al Court of Justice dated 21 February 1989, OJ EPO 1991, 196.