SPC for plant protection products
3 preliminary rulings
Judgment of 19 Jun 2014, C-11/13 (Bayer CropScience) 
The term ‘product’ in Article 1.8 and Article 3(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1610/96 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 1996 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products, and the term ‘active substances’ in Article 1.3 of that regulation, must be interpreted as meaning that those terms may cover a substance intended to be used as a safener, where that substance has a toxic, phytotoxic or plant protection action of its own.
Judgment of 17 Oct 2013, C-210/12 (Sumitomo Chemical)
Article 3(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1610/96 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 1996 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products must be interpreted as precluding the issue of a supplementary protection certificate for a plant protection product in respect of which an emergency marketing authorisation has been issued under Article 8(4) of Directive 91/414/EEC of 15 July 1991 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market, as amended by Commission Directive 2005/58/EC of 21 September 2005.
Articles 3(1)(b) and 7(1) of Regulation No 1610/96 must be interpreted as precluding an application for a supplementary protection certificate being lodged before the date on which the plant protection product has obtained the marketing authorisation referred to in Article 3(1)(b) of that regulation.
Judgment of 10 May 2001, C-258/99 (BASF)
The concept of a product within the meaning of Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 1610/96 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 1996 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products covers chemical elements and their compounds, as they occur naturally or by manufacture, including any impurity inevitably resulting from the manufacturing process, which have general or specific action against harmful organisms or on plants, parts of plants or plant products.
Two products which differ only in the proportion of the active chemical compound to the impurity they contain, one having a greater percentage of the impurity than the other, must be regarded as the same product within the meaning of Article 3 of Regulation No 1610/96.
The fact that a marketing authorisation must be obtained for the new plant protection product which has a different proportion of active chemical compound to impurity from that of the former plant protection product is not relevant for the purposes of establishing whether or not the constituent products of those plant protection products are the same.
The conditions laid down in Article 3(1)(a) and (d) of Regulation No 1610/96 are, in any event, not all satisfied where a product, as a plant protection product, manufactured according to a patented process and the subject of a marketing authorisation, differs from a previously authorised product, as a plant protection product, only in the proportion of the active chemical compound to the impurity it contains, the percentage of impurity being greater in the older product than in the new one, and where that process patent has been designated as the basic patent.
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