Patent Baristas

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. infringed two patents held by Pfizer Inc. for Celebrex, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Pfizer v. Teva (07-1271). Pfizer has three patents listed in the FDA’s Orange Book protecting its […]

What happens when a brand name drug company asserts that a patent covers its drug and then pulls it out from the Orange Book? You fight to get it back in, that’s what. In August, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA submitted a Citizen Petition pursuant to section 505 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) asking […]

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Well, There You Go Again!” The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit again affirmed that, while the practice of savings seeds after a harvest to plant the next season is as old as farming itself, you can’t save patented seeds. After the district court held that Loren David knowingly infringed […]

Earlier, in Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) v. Xenon Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that just because a case involves patents doesn’t mean that you automatically get federal jurisdiction.  The court ruled that it has no jurisdiction over the case because it does not present a claim arising under […]

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the issue of patent exhaustion — and that doesn’t mean people who are tired of hearing about patents. No, the patent exhaustion doctrine, commonly referred to as the first sale doctrine, is triggered by an unconditional sale and was set way back in Mitchell v. Hawley in 1873. […]

Monsanto sued Bayer Bioscience claiming that four Bayer patents relating to chimeric genes, including U.S. Patent Nos. 5,545,565, are invalid and not enforceable. After the district court declared the four patents unenforceable for inequitable conduct Bayer appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed after finding their researcher was less than forthcoming […]

In Biomedical Patent Management v. State Of California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a state’s initial waiver of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity – when it intervened in an earlier, related action that was dismissed for improper venue — doesn’t mean that it waived sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment […]

Abbott Labs had one of those days. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court’s finding that Abbott infringed Innogenetics’ patented Hepatitis C Virus genotyping technology, U.S. Patent No. 5,846,704. The Federal Circuit did reverse and remande the earlier judgment that claim 1 of the ‘704 patent was not anticipated by […]