On March 10, 2026, the Presidium of the Russian IP Court considered the cassation appeals of the foreign company AstraZeneca AB and local company AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LLC against the decision of the Intellectual Property Court dated December 02, 2025, in case No. SIP-298/2025. Following the review, the cassation court upheld the decision of the court of first instance and dismissed the appeals.
Lawyers of «A.Zalesov & Partners» Patent & Law Firm represented the interests of JSC «AKRIKHIN» at all stages of the process.
The courts of first and cassation instances recognized the actions of AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LLC as an act of unfair competition, as well as the right of AKRIKHIN JSC to use inventions for the compound dapagliflozin and a pharmaceutical composition containing dapagliflozin in a medicinal product, and obliged AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LLC and AstraZeneca AB to refrain from creating obstacles to the introduction of the drug Fordiglyph into circulation.
This is the first case in Russian practice where a dispute arose over the right to use an invention that has entered the public domain under patent No. 2337916 and is simultaneously protected by another valid patent No. 2746132.
The courts in this case, taking into account the factual circumstances of the case and guided by the law, protected the public interest in the free use of the invention, which had passed into the public domain.
This case has already attracted considerable attention from the professional community: it highlights the importance of good faith behavior by patent holders and aims to protect the public interest by preventing the removal of an invention from the public domain after the termination of the patent rights, regardless of the grounds for such termination.
The judicial position formed as a result of the review helps to clarify legal approaches to the use of pharmaceutical technologies after the expiration of patent protection and strengthens legal certainty for manufacturers of generic drugs operating within the framework of the law.
The decision is also of great importance for the Russian pharmaceutical market - it sets guidelines for the correct balance of interests between copyright holders and participants exercising their legal right to produce medicines based on technologies available to the public.
This case is actively discussed and covered by the media.
The client's interests in the case were represented by Head of Intellectual Property Practice Aleksey Zalesov and Senior Associate Darya Kushnarenko.