Patent Baristas

The recent decision, about a backbone stabilizing device, in Cross Medical Prods. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, 424 F.3d 1293 (Fed. Cir. 2005), may be a reminder why so many commentators have weighed in on the need to reform the Patent Act, or to reign in judicially-created rules. The panel decision in Cross Medical works out […]

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took up the question of internal use of an invention as it relates to a public use in determining patentability in Invitrogen Corp. v. Biocrest Mfg., L.P., Stratagene Holding Corp., & Stratagene, Inc., 04-1273, -1274. On an earlier remand from the CAFC, the District Court, […]

A British court handed down a mixed verdict for Pfizer in a patent dispute, upholding one of the company’s British patents on Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering medicine, but invalidating a second patent. The ruling will have no practical effect on Pfizer’s control over Lipitor, because the patent upheld by the court expires in November 2011, while […]

Gen-Probe Inc. announced today that the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed the summary judgment in favor of Gen-Probe in the patent infringement lawsuit initiated by Enzo Biochem, Inc. The summary judgment was granted in July of 2004 by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. […]

Akzo Nobel’s human healthcare business, Organon, has entered into a non-binding letter of intent with Cincinnati’s Duramed Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a subsidiary of Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc., to settle the pending patent litigation concerning a generic version of Organon’s Mircette® oral contraceptive. Under the proposed transaction, Barr would pay Organon $142 million to settle the patent litigation […]

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed down a decision in In Re Dane K. Fisher And Raghunath V. Lalgudi (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 04-1465 (Serial No. 09/619,643), September 7, 2005). Monsanto had appealed the rejection of its patent application for five expressed sequence tags (ESTs) that encode parts […]

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey has issued a summary judgment ruling that GlaxoSmithKline’s U.S. Patent Nos. 5,578,628 (the ‘628 patent) and 4,753,789 (the ‘789 patent) for Zofran ODT(R) (ondansetron) Orally Disintegrating Tablets are valid, enforceable and infringed by Kali Laboratories, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Par Pharmaceutical Companies, Inc. There […]

Today’s post comes from Guest Barista C. Lee Thomason, an expert with over twenty years experience in complex patent infringement suits, on the much-anticipated Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision in Phillips v. AWH Corp.: The en banc decision in the Phillips case urges that claim construction will be done essentially in accord […]