On Friday 22 June the Commercial Court in Vienna, Austria dismissed
the pending case based on a finding that Acambis' MVA3000 product
does not infringe Bavarian Nordic's Austrian MVA patent. The decision
is based on inaccuracies in the interpretation of the patent claims
to only cover the virus material which is physically deposited at the
European Collection of Cell Cultures under the Budapest Treaty in
connection with the patent. The decision will have no impact on
Bavarian Nordic's business.
Bavarian Nordic will appeal this decision in order to defend its
Austrian intellectual property rights position. The company is
confident that the decision will be reversed on appeal, as the
Court's finding contradicts the European Patent Convention as well as
the Biotech Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological
inventions, which govern also Austrian patent law. In the meantime,
Bavarian Nordic prosecutes different claims in a divisional European
patent application to safeguard its European patent position.
The Austrian Court's ruling has no impact on the patent case pending
at the U.S. International Trade Commission.
Commenting on the Austrian decision, Peter Wulff, President and CEO
of Bavarian Nordic, said:"The decision basically holds that a patent relying on deposited
material under the Budapest Treaty, which is normal practice with
respect to biological inventions, would only receive protection for
the physically deposited material itself. This would in effect render
intellectual property protection into personal property protection.
The decision is untenable because it would also in effect only
protect the exact biological material made available at the
depository by the Patentee himself."
Kvistgård, 25 June 2007
Asger Aamund
Chairman
Contacts:
Li Westerlund, Director Intellectual Property Rights
Telephone: +45 33 26 83 96
Media: United Kingdom
Mary Clark, Capital MS&L
Telephone: +44 207 307 5330
Media: United States of America
Elizabeth Dempsey Becker, Bavarian Nordic Inc.
Telephone: +1 202 536-1576
