After five years of the tense litigation the client of «A.Zalesov & Partners» Patent & Law Firm, «British American Tobacco», preserved his rights for the invention «Electronic inhalation device» with minimal amendments in a validity dispute initiated by another tobacco producer — «Philip Morris Products» S.A.
An invalidation action against the client was initiated by the competitor in August 2018 and was reconsidered three times in the Chamber for Patent Disputes of Rospatent when the IP Court had returned the case twice for reconsideration after revealing a row of procedural and material law breaches. The decision of the first instance court remained unchanged and the case was anyway returned for reconsideration to the Rospatent, even after the higher instance court obliged the first instance court to check the row of additional questions not examined during the first consideration in the Russian IP Court acting as a first instance court.
Third reconsideration in the Chamber for Patent Disputes resulted in preserving the validity of the patent with minimal changes. By such a decision the client preserved his legal monopoly for a certain line of products not letting the competitors to enter the market with the infringement of his patent rights.
But are we closing the book in this 5-years dispute? - The parties still have time to appeal the decision.
The client was represented by A-Z IP partners - Aleksey Zalesov, Irina Ozolina, Maria Makhlina.