Huge Win for Novo Nordisk - Beats Sanofi To Keep Injection Pen Patent

[https://www.law360.com/articles/2474744/novo-nordisk-beats-sanofi-to-keep-injection-pen-patent](https://www.law360.com/articles/2474744/novo-nordisk-beats-sanofi-to-keep-injection-pen-patent)

Law360, London (May 7, 2026, 6:32 PM BST) -- Novo Nordisk can keep a patent for an injection device with a display panel showing the dose given to a patient, as European appellate officials dismissed claims from Sanofi-Aventis and Medmix that the device was obvious based on earlier devices. 

A board of appeal at the European Patent Office ruled in a decision on March 19, just made public, that Novo Nordisk could keep amended claims for its patented device because no scientists at the time would have redesigned the existing technology as it required deeper structural changes. 

The patent protects an injection device, such as an insulin pen, with a large display showing the dose in big numbers. Most pens have a limited space for such ciphers, so Novo Nordisk's specifically provides a large display to enhance visibility, the patent description reads. 

Both Novo Nordisk and its rivals had appealed a decision to maintain the patent, with the patent owner arguing that the patent should be maintained based on different amended claims that were more closely aligned with its main request. Sanofi and Medmix, however, wanted the appellate board to nix it fully, the decision said. 

The appellate board largely sided with Novo Nordisk, ruling that the amended claims based on its main request were new and clearly explained.

Sanofi and Medmix had argued that Novo Nordisk's pen device was obvious, but the appellate board disagreed. It noted that combining elements of prior patents would result in an alternative device — not the claimed solution.

Moreover, earlier devices generally required either a scale drum feature or dose dial button to move axially, meaning movement around a central axis. But there was no clear motivation for scientists to redesign them so that both stayed axially fixed, the decision said. Doing so would require the skilled scientists to make deep structural changes affecting spring tension and the injection mechanism, the appellate board ruled. 

In any case, the appellate board held that the real question was whether a skilled scientist would have modified the existing tech, not whether such a person could have, as Sanofi and Medmix appeared to claim.

Sanofi and Medmix further argued that the claims mentioned an automatic spring-driven injection, but the patent didn't give skilled scientists information on "any possible way" to make it work with all the other patented features. These included the dose-setting mechanism, the decision said. 

But the appellate board found that skilled scientists would know how to combine existing spring-driven mechanisms with known dose-setting mechanisms and put the patent's features "into practice." This wouldn't require extensive modification, as Sanofi and Medmix had argued, the decision said.