Ariad Denied Declaratory Judgment
Ariad Pharmaceuticals announced that the United States District Court for the District of Delaware denied their motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Amgen relating to their products Enbrel(R) and Kineret(R). In the lawsuit, Amgen is seeking a declaratory judgment that these products do not infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,410,516, covering methods of treating human disease by regulating NF-κβ cell-signaling activity, and that the patent is invalid and that Amgen has not infringed any of the claims of the ‘516 Patent based on activities related to Amgen’s products, Enbrel® and Kineret®. As we’ve said earlier, this is far for over.
Stanford to Ban Drug Makers’ Gifts to Doctor
Stanford University Medical Center announced Tuesday it is joining a small group of academic medical centers in banning its physicians from accepting industry gifts of any size, including drug samples, free meals, free tickets to sporting events, free pens or any of the other freebies showered on doctors by drug companies. This is a start but only a drop in the bucket for an industry that spends $21 billion per year on marketing.
Anti-Patent Attorney Dan Ravicher Campaigns Against Over-Broad Software Patents
Dan Ravicher, of the Public Patent Foundation, is interviewed in MIT’s Technology Review.
TR: How are these patents on standards abused? Can a patent holder, regardless of the legal outcome, inflict damage on a developer?
DR: In a lot of software patent cases we’ve seen, the patent holder ends up losing — but only in court. But that doesn’t mean the developer didn’t lose a substantial amount of time and money and distraction. Simply because many software developers are resource-deprived, they’re denied a fair day in court to prove their innocence.
FTC Keeps Up Fight Against Generic Settlements
After losing lost a court challenge in 2005 and the Supreme Court declined to hear its appeal, the Federal Trade Commission is continuing its fight against settlements by drug companies to delay generic entry to the market. FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said “There is no question we’ve taken some hits on this,” But “we are not walking away.”
Pfizer Wins in Challenge to Norvasc Patent
Pfizer said a federal District Court upheld Pfizer’s patent covering amlodipine besylate, the active ingredient in Norvasc, a medicine for treating hypertension. The generic manufacturer, Synthon Pharmaceuticals, had challenged the patent. The court ruled that the patent (U.S. Patent No. 4,879,303) covering amlodipine besylate is valid and infringed by the generic manufacturer’s product and can keep Synthon from launching a generic version until September 2007.
Materials, Medicine, and Nanotechnology Summit
The Materials, Medicine, and Nanotechnology Summit will be hosted by Cleveland Clinic, ASM International, and the Nano-Network as the anchor event of Nano-Weekâ„¢ 2006, a five-day exploration of how nanotechnology is changing our world. The Summit is comprised of the biennial Cleveland Clinic NanoMedicine Summit and ASM’s Materials & Processes for Medical Devices (MPMD) Conference and Exposition.
