Patent Baristas

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering conducting a study to analyze the use and likely short- and long-run competitive effects of authorized generic drugs in the prescription drug marketplace. An authorized generic is chemically identical to a particular brand-name drug, but the brand-name manufacturer authorizes it to be marketed in a generic version. In […]

The USPTO is proposing changes to the rules of practice relating to ex parte and inter partes reexamination. The USPTO is proposing to provide for a patent owner reply to a request for reexamination prior to the Examiner’s decision on the request. Currently, most requests are allowed and the new procedures may help cut down […]

In an exciting exchange at the Supreme Court, lawyers for MercExchange and eBay squared off in the battle for and against injunctions. The Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a crucial intellectual property case where the outcome could hinge on whether the justices think eBay is an evil patent infringer or the innocent victim of […]

The Baristas will be hosting the next exciting episode of the Carnival of Biotechnology on April 10th. The Carnival of Biotechnology is a regular roundup of the best blog posts on biotechnology. The carnival is guest-hosted by different sites, ensuring diversity in content and viewpoints. Biotechnology topics to submit include: Finance and business development Law […]

Medtronic filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Ireland against Guidant Corp.’s Vision and Xience stents (tiny tubes that prop open arteries) alleging that the stents infringe patents licensed to Medtronic from Evysio Medical Devices, a Canadian company. Medtronic is seeking an injunction and monetary damages. This is high-stakes for both Medtronic and Guidant as they […]

In a Sign o’ the Times, Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb have reached a settlement agreement with Apotex in the patent infringement lawsuit pending between the parties in the US District Court. The suit relates to the validity of a composition of matter patent for clopidogrel bisulfate, the active ingredient in Plavix. Plavix is one of […]

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in what seems to be a confusion over neutralization of an acid versus a salt, held that a claim for an acid is not literally infringed by a salt in Kao Corp. and Andrew Jergens Corp. v. Unilever and Conopco. Earlier, the U.S. District Court ruled that […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, in Teva Pharmaceuticals v. FDA and Apotex (05-5401 & 05-5460), held that in a suit challenging agency action, the courts are not to choose between competing meanings of an ambiguous statute when the agency hasn’t weighed in first. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act grants a […]