Patent Baristas

Merck is on the verge of losing patent protection for its multi-million dollar drug compound Simvastatin, paving the way for euphoric generic players to enter the U.S. Simvastatin market, which was worth around U.S. $4.4 Billion worldwide in 2005. Even though there is no current Para IV litigation for the Simvastatin tablet, the story so […]

Acambis, a UK biotechnology company, is fighting a patent-infringement lawsuit that may bar it from a $1.9bn contract to provide smallpox vaccines to the US government. Acambis is bidding for a US Government contract to supply an emergency-use stockpile of MVA. Currently, the company is fighting a three-front battle with Danish vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic, […]

Amgen has filed a complaint for declaratory judgment of patent invalidity and non-infringement in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware (Amgen et al. v. Ariad Pharmaceuticals). Amgen is seeking a declaratory judgment that each of the claims contained in U.S. Patent No. 6,410,516 (‘516 Patent”) covering methods of treating human disease […]

The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that judges do not have to automatically bar companies from using patents that they been shown to have violated. In eBay Inc. et al. v. MercExchange, LLC., a small patent-holding company that won a ruling against the auction site, the Court said judges must use a four-point test to […]

The European Court of Justice rendered a decision that states drug companies can’t receive patent extensions covering the combination of two substances when only one is an active ingredient and the other controls the release of the first. Drug companies often try to extend patent protection and, under EU rules, drug makers can apply for […]

In Breckenridge Pharmaceutical, Inc. v. Metabolite Laboratories, Inc., the Federal Circuit summarized the standard for personal jurisdiction in patent cases. Metabolite holds patents for a method of controlling hyperhomocysteinemia, a condition involving elevated serum metabolite levels, which is an emerging risk factor for heart and vascular disease, and its principal business involves licensing its patents […]

Eli Lilly and Company today got hammered by a jury in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts in Boston in a decision in the case of Ariad Pharmaceuticals et al. v. Eli Lilly and Company. The Jury handed down a verdict that U.S. Patent No. 6,410,516, owned by Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and […]

On April 30, 2006 Judge Richard W. Roberts of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in his memorandum opinion, has ruled in the favor of Ranbaxy & Ivax (acquired by Teva) by granting them summary judgment and contending that the FDA has acted contrary to the clear intent of Congress in its decision […]