AstraZeneca AB, a foreign company, filed an objection with Rospatent against the validity in the Russian Federation of AxelPharm's Eurasian Patent No. 40996 for the crystalline form of osimertinib, which protected a lung cancer medicinal product.
Upon the consideration of the objection, Rospatent ruled to invalidate the patent in full due to its failure to meet the «inventive step» patentability requirement.
The IP Court, considering AkselPharm's application to challenge Rospatent's decision, upheld the administrative body's position that the group of inventions lacked inventive step.
During the cassation hearing, we were able to prove the illegality of Rospatent's decision.
On November 12, 2025, the Presidium of the IP Court issued a ruling overturning the IP Court's decision, invalidating Rospatent's decision, and reinstating the patent in the Russian Federation.
In its ruling, the Cassation Court stated that the conclusion on non-patentability was based on an unacceptable assumption.
This case is one of the few in which the Court has recognized the patentability of a crystalline form of a known compound, taking into account the established approach to assessing the patentability of crystalline forms of known compounds established by the IP Court.
The client's interests in this case were represented by the Head of IP Practice Aleksey Zalesov and Senior Associate Julia Kolomytseva.