Patent Baristas

Forbes ran an article that Credit Suisse First Boston expects Pfizer to hold onto its Lipitor patent until March 2010, which is "earlier than the pre-litigation expectation of December 2011, but later than some estimates for 2006." It doesn’t expect a decision for the Lipitor patent trial before the summer of 2005. This would reduce […]

The Boston Globe reported that Genzyme Corp. sued Transkaryotic Therapies Inc. in the District Court of Tel Aviv, claiming that their method of purifying a treatment for Gaucher’s disease infringed on Genzyme’s Israeli patent No. 100,715, which covers certain cell culture processes involved in the manufacture of glucocerebrosidase.  TKT is conducting a clinical trial in […]

Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. got a favorable decision on its European Patent (No. 0706 376) from the European Patent Office Opposition Division. The European Patent Office maintained the validity of Angiotech’s patent with various claims, including claims to stents coated with paclitaxel and a polymeric carrier. Stents are tiny wire mesh tubes that are inflated inside […]

A new report out says that all federally approved lines of embryonic stem cells are contaminated with a non-human sialic acid molecule.  New research now suggests those lines may not prove useful as therapeutic agents. The sialic acid, Neu5Gc, is found on the surface of some animal cells, e.g., pigs, dogs, and mice, and human […]

The Intellectual Property Owners (IPO) announced a call for nominations for their 32nd National Inventors of the Year Award. See the brochure here. An inventor is eligible for the 2005 award if the invention: Originated in the U.S.; Is covered by a U.S. patent; and Was either patented or first made commercially available since the […]

Reuters reported that Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. lost its bid to keep 180 days of exclusivity for its generic version of Pfizer Inc.’s popular Zoloft antidepressant. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Teva Pharmaceuticals, Inc v. Pfizer Inc., 04-1186, rejected Teva’s bid to overturn a lower court ruling over whether the […]

By now, you’ve probably heard of the high-definition DVD format war brewing up as consumer electronics companies and Hollywood studios choose sides.   This is a battle between two high-definition DVD formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD, which are expected to arrive late this year and which will require new high-definition DVDs and a new class of […]

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that venture capital funding rose for the first time in four years in 2004.  Venture investments totaled $20.41 billion last year, up 8 percent from 2003.  While the total number of financing rounds fell by 1.2 percent to 2,067, the size of the investments rose increased from $18.91 billion in […]