ABG Patentes claims the largest team of qualified patent attorneys in Spain and many consider it the country's leading patent prosecution agency. In 2010 it continued to grow, announcing a more than 20% spike in workload and adding specialist advisors to its core practices of chemistry and biotech. The biggest new recruit to the firm in 2010 was US patent attorney David Loretto, who moved across from Fish & Richardson to bolster the firm's electro-mechanics group. "The firm has very good expertise," says a peer, "it is very well considered by some multinational and Spanish clients and has been growing".
In early 2011 the firm, which now has eight qualified European patent attorneys, was busy representing Novartis against Johnson & Johnson in a patent infringement and nullity action over a contact lens product. In the case, whose outcome will determine whether the lens product will go to market, founding partner Juan Arias was litigating for the client alongside Gómez Acebo & Pombo.
In other recent cases, Neurim Pharmaceuticals sought the advice of founding partner Francisco Bernardo on the interpretation of SPC regulation for medical products regarding its drug Melatonin-Circadin. Enrico Carbonell also acted for Actavis in relation to the drug fluvastatin. The firm gets frequent mandates from Teva, Saint Gobain, Boehringer, HTC and Seiko Epson.