Accession Issues for Supplementary Protection Certificates

Patented pharmaceutical products often require extensive testing prior to marketing authorisation approval being granted. As a result, a form of extended protection was introduced by EU Regulation (No. 1768/92) known as 'Supplementary Protection Certificates' ("SPC"). The extension given by an SPC is designed to compensate, to an extent, for the patent life lost in obtaining such marketing authorisation approval.