In the recent Braintree Labs v. Novel Labs, the Federal Circuit may have limited the value of composition for methods of treatment claims. The patent-in-suit related to compositions for preparing the bowels of a patient ready for colonoscopy. In particular, the claims were to a bowel prep composition “for inducing purgation of the colon of…
The Federal Circuit recently affirmed a decision by the District of New Jersey finding two patents owned by Hoffmann-La Roche invalid for obviousness. The patents-at-issue in Hoffmann-La Roche v. Apotex Inc., No. 2013-1128, are directed to methods of treating osteoporosis through a once-monthly administration of ibandronate, commercially available as Boniva. The Court applied surrogate testing…
It is a common practice in Hatch-Waxman and other civil litigation for parties to try to hide the ball in producing documents by interposing vague objections to document requests and then producing select documents subject to their vague objections. Some courts are beginning to deem that such conditional responses to requests for production are not…
On Friday, a divided Federal Circuit confirmed that it will continue to apply a de novo standard of review to claim construction and rejected calls to give more deference to district court decisions. Lighting Ballast Control, LLC v. Philips Elecs. et al. (No. 2012-1014) (Fed. Cir. Feb. 21, 2014). The de novo review standard has…
A three judge panel of the Federal Circuit recently affirmed the District of Delaware’s judgment of infringement and validity related to U.S. Patent No. 6,197,819 (owned by Northwestern University and licensed to Pfizer) covering the drug Lyrica, which treats seizures and certain types of nerve pain. The decision effectively prevents a generic version of Lyrica…
Politicians have begun talking about the damage caused by “patent trolls” and how to deal with it. On March 7, 2014, Carlson Caspers is hosting a CLE discussing non-practicing entities, public responses to them, and how your company can respond to non-practicing entities (or monetize its own portfolio). Agenda Background: This will explain the recent…
On January 24, 2014, in In re Lamictal Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, No. 12-cv-995, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9257 (D.N.J. Jan. 24, 2014), Senior District Judge William H. Walls dismissed a putative, antitrust-class action brought against GlaxoSmithKline LLC (“Glaxo”) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (“Teva”) in response to their agreement postponing the production of lamotrigine,…
The District of New Jersey recently refused to compel the return of inadvertently produced privileged documents despite a clawback provision in the protective order where the producing party relied on key word computer searches to screen for privilege without any further attorney review. In Shire LLC v. Amneal Pharmaceuticals, LLC, 2:11-cv-03781 (D.N.J. January 10, 2014),…
The Federal Circuit ruled last week that the Patent Office had incorrectly calculated the patent term adjustments for patents owned by Novartis and opened the door to longer patent terms. 35 U.S.C. § 154 provides for patent term adjustments if, save for certain limitations, an application is pending before the PTO for more than three…
Carlson Caspers, a top-ranked intellectual property law firm based in Minneapolis, recently won a significant victory on behalf of its client Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. In a decision handed down this week, U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Teva, the world’s biggest…