Insights

Brussels and Doha – April 1, 2024: The Legal 500 Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) 2024 edition has recognized 16 practice areas and 11 lawyers in Crowell & Moring’s Brussels and Doha offices. The 11 individual lawyers received 18 total rankings across the 16 different practice areas.

Chicago – February 9, 2023: World Trademark Review has recognized Crowell & Moring as a top trademark firm on both sides of the Atlantic, listing Crowell both in the U.S. national rankings and Belgium national rankings in its 2023 guide. In addition to its U.S. national rankings, Crowell received the highest ranking—gold—in Illinois, and also earned regional recognition in California.

Brussels – April 16, 2021: The Legal 500 Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) 2021 edition has recognized 11 practice areas and seven lawyers in Crowell & Moring’s Brussels office. The seven individual lawyers received 11 total rankings across all practice areas. The publication seeks to “highlight the practice area teams who are providing the most cutting edge and innovative advice to corporate counsel.”

The EU legal and policy framework regarding critical medicines and medicine shortages is rapidly changing.  In the past 12 months alone, there have been numerous developments: from the ‘Non-Paper’; to the Communication on ‘Addressing medicine shortages’; and the launch of the Critical Medicines Alliance.  In the next 12 months, there is likely to be similar developments – including a possible draft proposal for a ‘Critical Medicines Act’.  As the new regulatory framework becomes clearer, pharma companies will need to understand it, and prepare for the impact it will have.

The Judgment of the Brussels Court of Appeal is the latest development in the saga in Belgium where a Belgian parallel importer, PI Pharma NV, imported a generic Sandoz product from the Netherlands, repackaged and rebranded them, and placed them on the Belgian market alleging they were a Novartis’ originator product.

Unitary Patents are being granted and the Unified Patent Court is up and running as of June 1, 2023.  Since the 1970’s, there have been attempts at establishing a unitary European patent that would cover multiple European countries and would be enforced by a single court system.  This type of system is in contrast to the system known since 1973 of granting European Patents by the European Patent Office (EPO) and validating the European Patent in designated European countries, wherein each validated patent is enforced in the national court associated with the validated patent.

An inescapable part of marketing your (non-food) products consists of managing the risks caused by defective and/or non-compliant products. To deal with the legal aspect of this risk, economic operators must take measures prior to putting their products on the market as well as once the product has been commercialized.

In collaboration with the IBJ