Patent Baristas

In an article written a few years back, I’d noted that combining different forms of representation — litigating and prosecuting, litigating and opinining, and so on — created risk. David Hricik, How Things Snowball: The Ethical Responsibilities and Liability Risks Arising from Representing a Single Client in Multiple Patent-Related Representations, 18 Geo. J. Legal Ethics […]

The Federal Circuit has held that a licensee in good standing cannot bring suit in federal court seeking a declaration that the licensed patent is invalid or unenforceable. I think that’s right, and I’ve written an amicus brief that I am writing on behalf of law professors (mostly IP types) to file with the Supreme […]

In his official capacity as Director of the USPTO, Jon Dudas, along with Yeda Research and Development Co., was recently named as a defendant in an action filed by Enzo Therapeutics. The complaint, filed July 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, details Enzo’s unsuccessful efforts to establish co-pendency of […]

The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) announced the settlement of their suit against Nektar Therapeutics and Dr. Milton Harris, the founder of Nektar Alabama and a former employee of UAH, in exchange for a total cash payment of $25 million. Under the terms of the agreement, Nektar and Dr. Harris have jointly made an […]

After the Supreme Court refused to hear the Federal Trade Commission v. Schering-Plough case, Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) have introduced legislation to explicitly prohibit brand-name drug manufacturers from using pay-off agreements to keep cheaper generic equivalents off the market. In 2005, two appellate court decisions […]

Teva Pharmaceuticals announced that it launched a generic version of the antibiotic Biaxin® (clarithromycin) XL Filmtabs® following the decision rendered on Thursday June 22, 2006 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacating a June 2005 ruling which had granted Abbott’s motion for a preliminary injunction related to the product. However, Abbott […]

After being bombarded with 20 amicus briefs, the U.S. Supreme Court has opted out of ruling on the LabCorp v. Metabolite Laboratories case (U.S., No. 04-607) saying that it had “improvidently” agreed to hear the case in the first place and it dismissed the appeal. Basically, thousands of patents on medical tests and genes dodged […]

In Abbott Labs. v. Andrx Pharm., Inc., No. 05-1433, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a preliminary injunction granted pursuant to plaintiff’s claims alleging infringement of its patents relating to extended release formulations of a broad spectrum antibiotic should be vacated where (a) the plaintiff failed to establish a likelihood […]