8.10.2011   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 298/17

1.

Does Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement setting out the framework for patent protection fall within a field for which the Member States continue to have primary competence and, if so, can the Member States themselves accord direct effect to that provision, and can the national court apply it directly subject to the requirements laid down by national law?

2.

Under Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement are chemical and pharmaceutical products patentable subject matter provided that they satisfy the requirements for the grant of patents and, if so, what is the scope of their protection?

3.

Under Articles 27 and 70 of the TRIPS Agreement, do patents covered by the reservation in Article 167(2) of the 1973 Munich Convention which were granted before 7 February 1992, that is to say, before the above agreement entered into force, and concerned the invention of pharmaceutical products, but which, because of the aforementioned reservation, were granted solely to protect their production process, fall within the protection for all patents pursuant to the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and, if so, what is the extent and content of that protection, that is to say, have the pharmaceutical products themselves also been protected since the above agreement entered into force or does protection continue to apply to their production process only or must a distinction be made based on the content of the application for grant of a patent, that is to say, as to whether, by describing the invention and the relevant claims, protection was sought at the outset for the product or the production process or both?