POLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Krystyna Szczepanowska-Kozłowska, Marcin Ziarkowski, Krzysztof Popławski and Kacper Sobolewski, A&O Shearman
invalidation application. The case advanced all the way to the Supreme Administrative Court. The applicable laws for trade mark disputes in the life sciences and pharma sector are mainly found in the Act on Industrial Property Law of 2000, the Act on Pharmaceutical Law of 2001, the Act on Medical Devices of 2022 and the Act on Combating Unfair Competition of 1993. 6.2 Copyright Copyright disputes in the life sciences and pharma sector in Polish jurisdiction are not very common, and so far, no significant dispute has reached a final deci ‑ sion in court. The most prominent case of GSK v Celon ended with a settlement. In this case, GSK claimed that the shape of its inhaler for treating asthma had sufficient original ‑ ity to be a work within the meaning of copyright law. Celon argued that the shape of the inhaler was neces ‑ sary to obtain a technical result and was described in such a way in an earlier expired patent, and therefore, it cannot be protected by copyright law. However, as the dispute was settled, the court did not decide on the merits of the dispute. Some typical copyright issues which may arise in the life sciences and pharma sector are: • the protection and enforcement of copyrights in the originality, expression, and form of life sciences and pharma products; • the transfer of copyrights to works such as the packaging of a drug, its shape, or its trade mark; or • claims related to advertising activities when a drug manufacturer infringes on someone else’s copy ‑ rights. The relevant sources of Polish law that regulate copy ‑ right are the Act on Copyright and Related Rights of 1994. 6.3 Trade Secrets Trade secret disputes are relatively rare in the Polish life sciences and pharma sector. They happen occa ‑ sionally, especially when former employees, compet ‑ itors, or third parties unlawfully access confidential
information through hacking, espionage, or contract breaches. In Poland, a trade secret is valuable infor ‑ mation that is not widely known or easy to obtain by others in the same field and that must be protected by the owner with reasonable measures. The main legal source for trade secret disputes in the Polish life sciences and pharma sector is the Act on Combating Unfair Competition of 1993, which stipu ‑ lates that the breach of a trade secret as defined in this Act is an act of unfair competition. On a separate note, Polish law does not define “know-how” sep ‑ arately, and it is basically treated as a trade secret within the meaning of the aforementioned Act. In the Polish legal system, due to the principle of bifur ‑ cation, there are two different appellate proceedings: • from a judgment of the court of first instance in a patent infringement case, the party may file an appeal to the court of second instance; and • from a decision of the PPO in patent invalidation proceedings, the party may file a complaint to the Voivodeship Administrative Court. Patent Infringement Cases In patent infringement cases, the appeal is filed to the court of second instance (through the court that issued the challenged judgment) within a two-week period from the delivery of the judgment with the rea ‑ soning to the appealing party (the deadline may be extended to three weeks). Filing an appeal prevents the challenged judgment from becoming final and transfers the examination of the case to the higher instance court. 7. Appeal 7.1 Timeframe to Appeal Decision In the appeal, the party may raise objections relating to the factual findings made by the first instance court, such as violations of substantive or procedural law. The appellant has full freedom to present the grounds of appeal. The appellate proceedings consist of a re-examination of the case by the court of second instance on the
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