Division The first infringement

The first infringement of Article 82 of the EC Treaty and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement constitutes a single and continuous abuse and consists of a pattern of misleading representations made by AZ before patent offices in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK and before national courts in Germany and Norway.

The misleading information was initially provided by AZ in the context of its applications to several patent offices in June 1993 and December 1994 within the EEA for extra protection for omeprazole (the active substance in AZ’s product Losec) in the form of so-called supplementary protection certificates.