Published in Swedish 27 february 2018
The European Patent Office (EPO) has announced that the application (WO2017/076835) submitted by PharmaLundensis under the terms of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), and which aims to protect the company’s method for significantly reducing waste production in vaporisation processes, meets all the requirements for patents (novelty, level of invention and industrial applicability). This PCT application can therefore form the basis for national patents in most countries around the world. The patent process should therefore be especially quick in Europe as the same verifier usually assesses both PCT and EPO applications. A Swedish patent has already been granted for this application. Awapatent, the patent agency used by PharmaLundensis, considers the patent to be a very strong one that will prove very difficult for other companies to circumvent.

Another patent application (SE 1551420A1) submitted by PharmaLundensis to protect the use of an evaporator to isolate environmentally hazardous substances in hospital wastewater will be awarded a Swedish patent on 6 March 2018. The company has also received positive news concerning several requirements in the corresponding application to the Patent Cooperation Treaty. In addition, the company has submitted two further patent applications that protect the complete system. These applications have not yet been published.

CEO Dr Staffan Skogvall: Our patent protection for EcoFilter^® is getting stronger. This reduces the risk that competitors can win shares of the large market for cleaning medicines from waste water while increasing our opportunities for bringing in good partners for our EcoFilter^® project. There is a massive need for good solutions to the problem of medicine in wastewater. I am very confident about the future of EcoFilter^®!