Patent Baristas

AstraZeneca New Zealand announced that it has reached an oral agreement with the New Zealand government drug-buying agency to continue supplying its prostate and breast cancer medicine Zoladex to the New Zealand market, ending a bad public relations nightmare for both the company and the New Zealand government. AstraZeneca earlier made the decision to withdraw […]

A Delaware District Court ruled that Pfizer can exclusively sell Lipitor until 2011 after finding that Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd.’s generic version of Lipitor infringes on two Pfizer patents. Ranbaxy failed to prove Pfizer’s patents were invalid or unenforceable so Pfizer’s patents will remain in force until 2010 and 2011. Pfizer owns U.S. Patent Nos. 4,681,893 […]

Columnist Robert Horton ran a story, entitled “Muckraking movie takes on biotech industry” in the Daily Herald about a new documentary film: “The Future of Food.” It’s not the views of the documentary that scared me (documentaries are often slanted to make a point) but it was instead the views of the columnist himself that […]

Peter Zura’s Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog has an interesting note about the valuation (or, overvaluation, as the case may be) of Biotech patents. Zura points to an article from Dominique Patton, questioning whether the current onslaught of high profile patent litigation is causing excessive valuations of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) of technology companies. But, one […]

In India, a team of doctors is reviewing ancient Indian medical texts and putting this information into a 30-million-page electronic encyclopedia of India’s traditional medical knowledge, the first of its kind. As practitioners of ayurveda, unani and siddha, ancient Indian medical systems that date back thousands of years, these doctors are trying to put an […]

The World Trade Organization (WTO) members approved measures to make it easier for developing countries to get cheaper generic versions of medicines for communicable diseases like AIDS. Changes to the WTO’s intellectual property agreement would make permanent a waiver currently in place to allow poor countries without their own pharmaceutical manufacturing capacities to import cheaper […]

I received a letter from a reader asking about the current status of the reexamination request on Pfizer’s Viagra (sildenafil citrate) patent (U.S. Pat. No. 6,469,012). I always appreciate hearing from readers and don’t mind trying to answer questions (when I can) so I reviewed the file history. The proceedings are now merged (consolidated into […]

Colin Samuels brings on Blawg Review #35 in the Nine Circles of Hell from Dante’s Inferno. Samuel’s Infamy or Praise review provides an overview law blawgs within the concept of a hell unworthy of Hell — one filled with those who, as Dante observes, “made through cowardice the great refusal.” Samuel shows his desire to […]