108As regards, in particular, those countries where the misleading representations enabled AZ to obtain unlawful SPCs, the appellants cannot deny the anti-competitive effect of those representations on the ground that the applications for the SPCs were filed between five and six years before the entry into force of those SPCs and that, until that time, AZ’s rights were protected by lawful patents. Not only do such unlawful SPCs lead, as the General Court observed at paragraphs 362, 375 and 380 of the judgment under appeal, to a significant exclusionary effect after the expiry of the basic patents, but they are also liable to alter the structure of the market by adversely affecting potential competition even before that expiry.