PTABWatch Blog

http://www.ptabwatch.com/author/kneville/

PTABWatch, provided by Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP, analyzes and reports recent developments concerning Post-Grant Proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), including Inter Partes Review (IPR), Post Grant Review (PGR), and Covered Business Method (CBM) proceedings.

Recent Blog Posts

  • PTAB Not Always Bound By Previous Court Decisions Regarding Patent Validity In Novartis AG v. Noven Pharm. Inc., Appeal 2016-1678-1679 (April 2017), Novartis appealed two PTAB decisions holding claims of two patents obvious over cited prior art (IPR2014-00549 and IPR2014-00550), arguing that previous judicial holdings of non-obviousness should control the PTAB’s factual findings and that the claims should have been held non-obvious. The two Novartis patents at issue (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,316,023 and 6,335,031) were from the same patent family and are directed to a pharmaceutical composition comprising rivastigmine (Exelon®) and an... More
  • Claim Construction Sends Duke’s Patent Back to PTAB for Reconsideration, In Part In a recent appeal from a PTAB final written decision, the Federal Circuit reversed the Board’s determination that all claims of a Duke patent were unpatentable (Duke Univ. v. BioMarin Pharm. Inc., Appeal No. 2016-1106 (Fed. Cir., April 25, 2017). The court concluded that certain of the Board’s claim constructions were incorrect, and that others, while appropriate, were mis-applied and reversed the Board’s decision on anticipation, as well as obviousness of some claims. This case is the third in a series of IPRs... More
  • CFAD Fails to Knock Out 4 Acorda Patents to Multiple Sclerosis Drug A recent set of final written decisions in four IPRs against Acorda Therapeutics puts more marks in the loss column for Kyle Bass and the Coalition for Affordable Drugs.  In IPRs 2015-01850, -01853, -01857 and -01858 (Coalition for Affordable Drugs v. Acorda Therepuatics Inc.), the Coalition for Affordable Drugs (CFAD) requested review of Acorda Therapeutics U.S. patents U.S. 8,440,703, U.S. 8,007,826, U.S. 8,663,865, and U.S. 8,354,437, respectively, directed to sustained release formulations of fampridine (4-AP) and methods for administering the... More
  • Purdue Not Estopped From Raising Invalidity Contentions at Trial That Were Submitted But Not Instituted During IPR Recently, the Federal District Court for the District of New Jersey allowed Purdue Pharma to assert invalidity arguments in the litigation that were previously submitted in an IPR petition, but upon which IPR review was not instituted. See Depomed Inc. v Purdue Pharma LP, Civil Action 13-571, Order (D.N.J. Nov. 4, 2016). The Court rejected the patent owner’s arguments that Section 315(e) of Title 35 estopped Purdue from raising these argument. Patent Owner Depomed holds multiple patents directed to compositions... More
  • PTAB Denies Institution of 3 IPRS Against Biogen’s TYSABRI® (natalizumab) On October 17, 2016, the PTAB denied institution of three IPRs [IPR2016-00912, IPR2016-00915, and IPR2016-00916] petitioned by Swiss Pharma AG against three patents owned by Biogen IDEC directed to its anti-α4 integrin antibody product, TYSABRI (natalizumab), marketed to treat multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease. The PTAB weighed the Petitioner’s assertions of routine experimentation against the Patent Owner’s arguments of unpredictability in deciding the outcome.  The three patents  (US 8,815,236, 8,349,321, and 8,900,577) each claim priority to the same provisional application filed... More
  • 3 Is a Magic Number for Mylan: 3 Teva Copaxone Patents Struck Down in IPRs In a series of unfortunate events for Teva Pharmaceuticals, three patents covering methods for administering the blockbuster multiple sclerosis (MS) drug Copaxone® (glatiramer acetate) (owned by Yeda Research and Development Co.) were struck down by the PTAB in recent IPR decisions (IPR2015-00830, IPR2015-00643, and IPR2015-00644).  These patents are directed to methods for administering Copaxone in a 40 mg dosage form, 3 times per week to treat relapsing-remitting MS:  U.S. Patent Nos. 8,232,250, 8,399,413 and 8,969,302.  Illustrative claim 1 of the... More
  • The Three-Front Assault: PeroxyChem Uses IPR, PGR and District Court to Challenge Opponent In what could become a common patent challenge strategy, PeroxyChem, a chemical company that sells products useful in water and soil remediation, has employed a three-front assault—combining the relatively young post-grant review procedure, with an IPR and litigation–to take on one of its competitors, Innovative Environmental Technologies (IET).  Litigation together with an IPR has become a rather common means to challenge a competitor’s patent. However, post grant review is gaining in popularity among litigants, adding to the available strategies of... More
  • Federal Circuit Confirms PTAB Can Cite Prior Art in IPR Final Decision That Was Not In Grounds Of Institution In a recent appeal from a PTAB final written decision, the Federal Circuit determined that a patentee was not denied notice or an opportunity to respond to references cited in the final written decision as representing the state of the art,  but that were not the basis for a grounds for institution.  (Genzyme Therapeutic Prods. Ltd. v BioMarin Pharm. Inc., Appeal Nos. 2015-1720, -1721 (Fed. Circ., June 14, 2016)).  The court concluded that there is no requirement, either in the... More
  • Patent Ineligibility Under §101 Continues Slow Ooze Over More Territory Biotech companies have increasingly found themselves the target of IPRs, and we have discussed this in some of our past posts.  Meanwhile, in the District Courts, biotech companies are defending against a new wave of challenges to the patent-eligibility of their inventions under 35 U.S.C. § 101.  While challenges under § 101 cannot be raised as grounds in an IPR, the PTAB has required proof of eligibility where patent owners have sought to amend their claims during IPRs.  In at least two... More
  • Another “Reasonable” Re-Interpretation by the Federal Circuit In a recent decision appealing the PTAB’s finding of claims unpatentable in two different, but related re-examination proceedings, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded the Board’s decisions based on reinterpretation of claim terms construed under the PTAB’s broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) standard during the re-examination process (In re Varma, Appeal 2015-1502 and 2015-1667, Fed. Circ., March 10, 2016).  This decision is one of several recent decisions in which the Federal Circuit has taken the opportunity to reinterpret the PTAB’s broadest “reasonable”... More
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