Bernabé Zea y Montserrat Jané participated in the seminar on ‘Legal bases and industrial protection: patents, data protection and market exclusivity’, organised by IL3 (Institute of Continuing Education of the University of Barcelona) which was held on-line on 23 and 24 November. The course was aimed at pharmaceutical registration professionals.

During the course Bernabé gave a general introduction to key concepts of intellectual property, covering topics such as the importance of patents in the pharmaceutical sector and the rights obtained when a patent is granted, patent litigation, how to enforce patent rights against third parties and how to prevent possible infringements, and dealt with the highly contentious subject of patents and COVID-19.

Montserrat’s presentation focused respectively on other highly topical issues such as the differences in obtaining patents in Europe versus the USA due to the controversial decisions of the US courts on patentable subject matter that have changed the rules of the game for many companies in the sector, and the future unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court.