Patent Law

C5 Pharma/Biotech IP Due Diligence Conference

Posted on July 19, 2008
C5 (UK) will be holding its Pharma/Biotech IP Due Diligence conference on October 28-29, 2008 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The conference will offer presentations on the following topics: ? Current trends in patent reform and how they impact your due diligence; ? Assessing the level of due diligence required and special considerations for complex multi-jurisdictional and multi-party transactions; ? A practical look at drafting the checklist and due diligence team selection; ? Essential valuation issues affecting the diligence review; ? Finding the target's prior licensing, contractual, and third party obligations; ? Freedom to operate: Ensuring the purchaser/licensee has right to commercialize...

Adequate Method Claiming Requirements: Muniauction, Inc. v. Thomson Corp.

Posted on July 18, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- The Federal Circuit clarified its position on method claim infringement to the detriment of the plaintiff in Muniauction, Inc. v. Thomson Corp., vacating an $84.6 million dollar judgment (in a contingency fee case, no less). In a jury trial, Defendants Thomson Corp...

Insmed Announces Partnership With Former House Ways and Means Chairman

Posted on July 18, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Insmed Inc., a biopharmaceutical company based in Richmond, Virginia, announced today that it has retained the former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Bill Thomas (at right), as a strategic advisor in its continuing effort "to bring follow-on biologics to U...

USPTO News: Office Summarizes Feedback on Public PAIR Access

Posted on July 18, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today released a summary of the feedback it received in response to its April 30, 2008 webcast concerning user access to the Public Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. During the webcast, Commissioner for Patents John Doll and Deputy Chief Information Officer Deborah Diaz noted that the Office had implemented a CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) tool in order to distinguish human users from automated scripts...

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Merck & Co. v. Apotex, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2008)

Posted on July 17, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- Federal Circuit jurisprudence on whether an Article III case or controversy exists continues to evolve regarding the extent to which federal district courts can exercise jurisdiction in patent cases, most recently in Merck & Co. v...

USPTO News: PTO Announces "Triway" Pilot Program

Posted on July 16, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced today that it was initiating a pilot program to promote worksharing between the USPTO, European Patent Office, and Japan Patent Office. The pilot program, dubbed "Triway," was first proposed by the USPTO at the 2005 Trilateral Pre-conference; the Trilateral Offices agreed at last year's Trilateral Pre-conference to undertake a limited pilot program...

Wall Street Journal: Current Patent System Suppresses Innovation

Posted on July 15, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- In an op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal, L. Gordon Crovitz opines that Congress' failure to enact patent reform this year has undermined the Constitutional mandate to encourage innovation (see "Patent Gridlock Suppresses Innovation")...

RNAi Patent Revoked by EPO

Posted on July 15, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- Last Friday, the European Patent Office revoked (in its entirety) European Patent No. EP 1 230 375, owned by Cancer Research Therapeutics Ltd. of Cambridge, UK and exclusively licensed to Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The patent was opposed by several companies involved in commercializing RNA interference (RNAi), including Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH, Sirna Therapeutics, Nucleonics, Inc...

Cellectis and Regeneron Resolve Licensing Dispute

Posted on July 14, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Earlier this month, Cellectis SA, based in Romainville Cedex, France, announced that it had reached an agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Tarrytown, NY, concerning the use of the French biotech company's homologous recombination patent estate...

Court Report

Posted on July 13, 2008
By Sherri Oslick -- About Court Report: Each week we will report briefly on recently filed biotech and pharma cases, and a few interesting cases will be selected for periodic monitoring. Abbott Laboratories v. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, Inc. et al. 3:08-cv-03390; filed July 8, 2008 in the District Court of New Jersey Infringement of U...

Insmed Announces Bioequivalent G-CSF Biologic

Posted on July 11, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- Insmed Inc. announced today that a just-completed clinical trial showed that its INS-19 product, a recombinant human granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) was "bioequivalent" to Amgen's FDA-approved Neupogen®, a product used for treating neutropenia, a blood deficiency disorder associated with, inter alia, chemotherapeutic drug treatment...

ACI Global Patent Litigation Conference

Posted on July 11, 2008
American Conference Institute (ACI) will be holding its Global Patent Litigation conference on October 7-8 in New York. The conference will allow attendees to: ? Develop a strategic plan for where to file patents based on existing jurisdictional factors; ? Ensure that patent rights will be enforced through a clear assessment of patent filing requirements in different countries; ? Avoid inconsistencies in claim construction, drafting, and translation; ? Decide where to litigate through key jurisdictional decision-making; ? Collaborate with outside counsel to understand foreign patent laws and procedures; ? Navigate international court systems including in the EU and China; ?...

Roche Palo Alto LLC v. Apotex, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2008)

Posted on July 10, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- The Federal Circuit today affirmed a finding on summary judgment by the District Court for the Northern District of California that U.S. Patent No. 5,110,493, which is owned by Plaintiffs-Appellees Roche Palo Alto LLC and Allergan, Inc...

The Written Description Training Materials and Ex parte Porro

Posted on July 09, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Last month, we reported on a presentation that Dr. George Elliott, Group 1600 Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, gave at this year's BIO International Convention (see "Docs at BIO: Representatives from JPO, EPO, SIPO, and USPTO Discuss Recent Developments in Japan, Europe, China, and the U...

Recent Developments in Pharmaceutical Patenting and Compulsory Licensing of Pharmaceutical Patents in Developing Countries

Posted on July 09, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- Two of the leaders among developing countries in challenging Western assumptions behind the TRIPS agreement and the WTO, Brazil and India, recently announced a further evolution of their national laws directed to implementing the provisions of that treaty...

BIO Submits Amicus Brief in Amgen v. Hoffman-LaRoche

Posted on July 08, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) submitted an amicus brief today to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the Amgen v. Hoffman-LaRoche case. This case involves Roche's Mircera® drug product, a form of recombinant EPO that has been covalently linked to polyethylene glycol...

AstraZeneca Prevails in Seroquel® Paragraph IV Litigation

Posted on July 08, 2008
By Sherri Oslick -- Late last week, Judge Pisano of the District Court of New Jersey granted summary judgment of no inequitable conduct in favor of AstraZeneca in its consolidated Paragraph IV litigation against Teva Pharmaceuticals and Sandoz, Inc. over AstraZeneca's antipsychotic drug Seroquel®...

Court Report

Posted on July 06, 2008
By Sherri Oslick -- About Court Report: Each week we will report briefly on recently filed biotech and pharma cases, and a few interesting cases will be selected for periodic monitoring. Shire LLC v. Nostrum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. et al. 3:08-cv-03309; filed July 2, 2008 in the District Court of New Jersey Infringement of U...

PLI CLE on Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc.

Posted on July 04, 2008
Practising Law Institute (PLI) will be offering an audio webcast entitled: "Life After Quanta v. LGE: What Every Patent Lawyer Needs to Know" on July 7, 2008 from 1:00-2:00 PM (EDT). J. Scott Ballenger of Latham & Watkins LLP and Jeffrey T. Green of Sidley Austin LLP will address the following issues: ? Can you structure a "multi-tier" license, extracting royalties from several different levels of a distribution chain, after the Quanta decision? ? What does Quanta mean for "use" restrictions and the Federal Circuit's "conditional sales" doctrine? ? What does this decision mean for self-replicating products like seeds and...

Congressmen Criticize U.S. Trade Representative over Special 301 Report

Posted on July 02, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- Four Congressman recently stepped into the crisis in world drug pricing, sending a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab last Thursday. The letter, signed by Congressman Charles Rangel (NY-15th Dist.), Congressman Rahm Emanuel (IL-5th Dist...

CBO Releases Report on Senate Follow-on Biologics Bill; BIO Calls for Congress to Pass Biologics Bill in 2008

Posted on July 02, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (S. 1695), which would establish a pathway for the FDA to approve follow-on biologics. The report was commissioned last summer by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, which announced on June 27, 2007 that it had passed the bill (see "Senate Committee Passes Biologics Legislation")...

Biotech/Pharma Lobbying Scoreboard - Part II

Posted on July 01, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- For the past few months, Patent Docs has been following and reporting on biotech and pharma lobbying efforts. Our interest in this topic stems from the push by Congress over the past year to pass patent reform and follow-on biologics legislation, and corresponding efforts by corporations and organizations during that time to lobby on this legislation...

University of Pittsburgh v. Hedrick (C.D. Cal. 2008)

Posted on June 30, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- On June 9, 2008, the University of Pittsburgh obtained a judgment correcting inventorship on U.S. Patent No. 6,777,231 under 35 U.S.C. § 256. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California determined that several of the inventors, who had assigned their rights to the Regents of the University of California, were not properly named as inventors, thus extinguishing the Regents' rights and nullifying a license from the University of California to Cytori Therapeutics, Inc...

Court Report

Posted on June 30, 2008
By Sherri Oslick -- About Court Report: Each week we will report briefly on recently filed biotech and pharma cases, and a few interesting cases will be selected for periodic monitoring. Eli Lilly and Company et al. v. APP Pharmaceuticals LLC 1:08-cv-00384; filed June 25, 2008 in the District Court of Delaware Infringement of U...

Conference & CLE Calendar

Posted on June 29, 2008
July 1, 2008 - Prior Art & Obviousness 2008: The PTO and CAFC Perspective on Patent Law Sections 102 & 103 (Practising Law Institute) - New York, NY July 9, 2008 - Quanta v. LG: What You Should Know (ALI-ABA) - 12:00-1:00 PM (EST) webcast July 9-11, 2008 - Fundamentals of Patent Prosecution 2008: A Boot Camp for Claim Drafting & Amendment Writing (Practising Law Institute) - San Francisco, CA July 16, 2008 - Patent Claim Construction Workshop (Law Seminars International) - Seattle, WA July 24-25, 2008 - Advanced Patent Prosecution Workshop 2008: Claim Drafting & Amendment Writing (Practising Law...

BIO Announces Venues and Dates for Upcoming Conventions

Posted on June 29, 2008
On June 20th, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) concluded its 2008 International Convention. More than 20,000 attendees from over 2,100 biotech companies, organizations, and institutions -- including Patent Docs authors (and MBHB attorneys) Donald Zuhn, Sherri Oslick, and Kevin Noonan (below) -- were in attendance at this year's International Convention in San Diego...

House Passes Patent Term Extension Bill

Posted on June 28, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- In 2001, The Medicines Company failed to file a patent term extension application for its anticoagulant drug Angiomax® (bivalirudin) within the 60-day time limit set forth under 35 U.S.C. § 156(d)(1); the application was filed one day late...

Docs at BIO: Panel Discusses IP Strategies after KSR

Posted on June 27, 2008
By Donald Zuhn -- Last week, a panel of biopharma attorneys participated in a breakout session at the BIO International Convention to discuss the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc. on biopharma patent prosecution and litigation...

USPTO News: USPTO e-Commerce Update

Posted on June 27, 2008
By Christopher P. Singer -- The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sent out an e-Commerce update on June 26, 2008 that provided information regarding the release of enhancements to Private PAIR and Public PAIR, the indexing of request documents for the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), and access to design patent applications using the Priority Document Exchange (PDX)...

Docs at BIO: "Gotcha" Games Continue at USPTO

Posted on June 26, 2008
By Kevin E. Noonan -- As reported by Patent Docs earlier this week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office took the podium at BIO 2008 last week in San Diego, in the person of Dr. George Elliott, a Director in Group 1600. Like his boss, John Doll, Director Elliott is a personable and friendly PTO presence as a speaker, and he did a good job of explaining Patent Office initiatives like worksharing programs and how the Group is applying the KSR Int'l Co...

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