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"Florida Prepaid" to be re-visited in "Biomedical Patent?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

The case is Biomedical Patent Management Corp. v. California Department of Health Services, 07-956, and it relates to 11th Amendment sovereign immunity in patent cases, a topic previously covered in Florida Prepaid Postsecondary, a case which declared part of the patent act unconstitutional.

The AP reported: California has filed 21 patent infringement suits since 1990, winning more than $900 million in judgements since 2000, according to the filings, while using sovereign immunity to get suits dismissed at least six times since 1987, including suits by Genentech Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co.

Unmentioned by AP is that states have to provide a forum. The cases mentioned got dismissed from FEDERAL COURT, but that
does NOT mean that plaintiff could not bring the cases elsewhere. If not so, then Florida Prepaid could be re-visited.

AP also stated: The case is particularly important for California's university system, which owns more than 3,300 patents that generate $210 million in annual revenue, according to court filings by a company that sued California's Department of Health Services.

Full post as published by IPBiz on April 21, 2008 (boomark / email).