Portuguese court strikes down 30-day mandatory arbitration deadline in patent infringement trial

... can be unconstitutional

PatLit has learned of an important Constitutional Court ruling from Portugal, where in recent years there have been substantial steps to improve the speed and efficiency of the resolution of intellectual property disputes. The ruling in question is Decision No. 123/2015, of 12 February 2015, which establishes that the 30-day deadline imposed for the initiation of mandatory arbitration of patent disputes is unconstitutional. This deadline was introduced by Law No. 62/2011, which created a system for settling disputes arising from industrial property rights regarding reference medicines and generic medicines, which was published on 12 December 2011.

The challenge to the law's constitutionality was brought after the country's Intellectual Property Court refused to grand interim injunctive relief in a patent infringement action, saying that the parties had first to go for mandatory arbitration.

Source: email circular from Baptista, Monteverde & Associados, Lisbon, Portugal.  Further details of this decision can be found here.  For more background, see guest post on PatLit by Pedro Malaquias here.