Lilly Icos Llc v Pfizer Ltd (1): CA 23 Jan 2002

The claimant had begun proceedings to apply for the revocation of the defendant’s patent for Viagra, on the grounds of obviousness. The defendant appealed the revocation.
Held: The prior literature was clear. It would have been obvious to have tried such a new medication in animal based experiments, and the need for those could not be used to support a claim for lack of obviousness. Any such testing would have taken a comparatively short time. That is what the skilled man in the art would have done. The patent was obvious, and the appeal against revocation failed.

Judges:

Lord Justice Aldous Lord Justice Buxton And Lord Justice Longmore

Citations:

[2002] EWCA Civ 1

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

CitedWindsurfing International Inc v Tabur Marine (Great Britain) Limited CA 1985
Testing Validity of a Patent
A patent was challenged where the windsurf board had been shown as a primitive prototype to have been built and used in public by a twelve year old boy. The court set out the four steps required to be taken when ascertaining the validity of a . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Intellectual Property

Updated: 05 June 2022; Ref: scu.167890