Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited announced that recently, in two separate rulings, the Spanish courts (the Mercantile Court of Barcelona, No. 2) found Spanish patent ES 2,167,306 (counterpart of Pfizer's EP 409 281) to be invalid for lack of novelty.
The two rulings made on September 26, 2006, in Lek Pharmaceuticals v. Warner Lambert Co. and in Laboratorios Cinfa et al. v. Warner Lambert, found claims 1 to 3 of Pfizer to be invalid. These decisions came after considering the views of the Spanish Patent Office (SPO), in addition to technical expert reports.
According to a Ranbaxy press release, on Friday, October 27, 2006, the European Patent Office (EPO) provided an advisory opinion at the request of the Mercantile Court of Barcelona, No. 4, presiding in the case of Ranbaxy v. Warner Lambert, wherein this Spanish patent was viewed as valid. It may be noted that the EPO's advisory opinion does not constitute a legal judgment upholding the patent, since only a Spanish court of law may decide on the validity (or not) of a Spanish patent
To date, Ranbaxy has successfully invalidated counterparts of this same patent in the UK, Austria, the Netherlands, and in the US for lack of novelty, lack of inventive step, and for improper claim dependency. The company will actively pursue its efforts to bring in affordable Atorvastatin to patients across the world.