Supreme Court to Hear Drug Patent Dispute
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The Supreme Court agreed to step into a dispute Friday over how far a patent can go to thwart a rival drug company's efforts to conduct research, a question with big-money ramifications in the pharmaceutical industry.
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A federal judge in Rhode Island is expected to rule soon in a potentially precedent-setting case that could limit states' ability to employ hardball tactics in price negotiations with drug firms.
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Companies on both sides of a patent overhaul debate in the U.S. Congress are stepping up the pressure on lawmakers, as some observers expect a vote soon in the Senate.Two groups, one supporting patent legislation before the Senate and one against it, held dueling media briefings on patent reform on Capitol Hill Thursday. Members of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, including lawyers from Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and SAP, said they see broad support for the Patent Reform Act in the Senate and hope senators will soon&#160;follow the House of Representatives&#39; lead and pass the bill.The coalition sent a letter to Senate leaders Wednesday, calling on them to pass the Patent Reform Act. The bill will &quot;benefit all American workers and American consumers,&quot; said the letter, signed by 128 companies and organizations, including Amazon, Dell, eBay, and Intel.But another group, the Innovation Alliance, sent a letter to Senate leaders Tuesday urging them to reject the legislation.&quot;No compelling case has been made for a bill written in this fashion,&quot; read the Innovation Alliance letter, signed by 430 companies and organizations. &quot;It is based on claims of a crisis in the current patent system that does not exist, supported by selective assertions which do not hold up under scrutiny.&quot;Among the companies and organizations signing the Innovation Alliance letter were the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA, the NanoBusiness Alliance, Cargill, Coca-Cola, and Qualcomm.Both the House and Senate versions of the Patent Reform Act would overhaul the U.S. patent system, but two pieces of the legislation have generated the most controversy. The bills would create a new way to challenge patents after they&#39;ve been granted, and it would allow courts to change the way they assess damages in patent-infringement cases.Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent. The legislation would allow courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece.Those changes would create uncertainty about the validity of patents and drive venture capital money away from innovative companies, said Joe Kiani, CEO of Masimo, a medical equipment vendor in Irvine, Calif.Combined with recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including one limiting the use of injunctions by plaintiffs in patent infringement lawsuits, the Patent Reform Act would significantly decrease the value of many patents, argued Kiani and other participants in an Innovation Alliance forum.The bill &quot;opens the way for other countries like China to bring technology here that will be a fraction of the cost and will be copies of our technology,&quot; Kiani said.Panelists at the Innovation Alliance forum said they&#39;d support patent reform that gives more money to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), allowing examiners to better research patent applications. &quot;We support prudent patent reform,&quot; said Sean Murdock, executive director of the NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade group representing nanotech companies. &quot;Simply stated, the current bill, in its current form, is not prudent.&quot;But members of the Coalition for Patent Reform, in a press briefing a couple of hours later, said Congress needs to fix problems with &quot;patent speculators&quot; suing established companies. The Supreme Court rulings and more money for the USPTO aren&#39;t enough, said Tim Crean, chief intellectual property officer for SAP.In the past two years, the Supreme Court has ruled on several patent issues, including a case involving eBay. In May 2006, the court overturned a long-term U.S. court practice of issuing injunctions against infringing products in nearly all patent cases.Despite the Supreme Court rulings, the number of patent lawsuits continues to grow, said Crean and Michael Holston, general counsel for HP. This year is shaping up to be a record year for patent lawsuits, Holston said.The coalition found about 625 patent lawsuits in 20 selected U.S. district courts in 1990. Through Sept. 30, the same 20 courts have seen about 1,550 patent lawsuits in 2007, the coalition said.HP will spend about $75 million defending against patent lawsuits this year, Holston said. More than half of those lawsuits come from patent &quot;speculators&quot; -- companies that buy patents for the purpose of filing lawsuits, he added.The patent system is &quot;being exploited through litigation games,&quot; added Mark Chandler, general counsel for Cisco.
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A federal appeals court let stand a ruling on Wednesday that reinstated a lawsuit challenging a Novartis AG  patent on the genital herpes drug Famvir.
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While the US Congress continues debate on new patent reform legislation that would likely limit the amount that aggrieved parties could receive in infringement suits, the Supreme Court has agreed with a Justice Dept. request to hear a critical case. Its outcome, one way or the other, may not only impact technology patent law but also how manufacturers mix Intel and AMD parts, and also how - believe it or not - how digital music stores sell MP3 tracks.
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is about to plunge into an agenda laden with issues affecting the business sector. Tobacco companies, the biotech industry, and operators of coal-fired power plants have a stake in cases the court will hear in the next month.
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The US Supreme Court on Monday will begin hearing arguments in a case that will decide whether patients in 11 states can legally use marijuana for medical reasons.
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The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could make it harder to obtain patents, with technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. supporting a change.
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SUPREME COURT Both sides of the marijuana debate are watching the Supreme Court very carefully, as it hears arguments today on its use as medicine.
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case focusing on whether peer-to-peer (P-to-P) software vendors should be penalized for unauthorized file trading when their software is used.
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The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a legal case with far-reaching implications for the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
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Justices will listen to oral arguments on whether the federal government can take action against those who use homegrown marijuana for medicinal reasons within states where it is legal to do so.
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A gas pedal lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court could make it harder for inventors to get patents.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could make it harder to obtain patents, with technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. supporting a change. The case, involving a patent on gas pedals for vehicles, has the Supreme Court examining how lower courts arrive at a decision that an invention was obvious, and therefore not patentable. In the case, Teleflex Inc. and Technology Holding Co., holders of the electronic gas pedal patent, sued KSR International Co. for patent infringement, but the defendant argued the courts should invalidate the gas pedal invention for obviousness. After oral arguments Tuesday, some patent lawyers said they expected the Supreme Court to overturn a 4-decade-old approach to deciding obviousness often called the teaching-suggestion-motivation test. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has used this test, saying that there must be some proven teaching, suggestion or motivation to lead a person of ordinary skill to combine "prior art" products into a new invention for that invention to be declared obvious. Other patent lawyers said they expect little movement from the Supreme Court, although any change would have a huge impact on patent holders. If the Supreme Court throws out the motivation test, all current patents could be suspect, said Paul Andre, an intellectual property lawyer with Perkins Coie LLP, in an interview. A change in the motivation test could mean fewer patent infringement cases brought by patent holders, because they would fear that courts would rule their patents invalid, he said. "The alleged infringer would have an easier time challenging a patent," he added. But most patent lawyers seem to believe the Supreme Court won't change the law, with the court last acting on the obvious standard in a 1966 ruling, he said. "If the Supreme Court wanted to do it, they'd have changed it by now," he said. But justices asked several questions about the obviousness standard, with Chief Justice John Roberts suggesting courts needed more flexibility to determine obviousness. The court will likely require the Federal Circuit to come up with a new standard, said Sharon Barner, an intellectual property lawyer with Foley and Lardner LLP, in an interview apart from the court hearing. Cisco and Microsoft, joined by three other companies, filed a brief in the case saying the motivation standard makes it too hard to prove obviousness, leading to bad patents. Microsoft and Cisco have been sued for "allegedly infringing dozens of questionable patents," wrote their attorney Peter Sullivan, of Hughes, Hubbard and Reed LLP. The motivation test "establishes too lenient a standard for patentability, and it has had a stifling effect on true innovation because it encumbers ideas well beyond the limits imposed by Congress for patentable inventions," Sullivan wrote in his brief to the Supreme Court. But a group of patent lawyers filed a brief opposing a change in the law, saying a change in the obviousness standard could make it difficult to get a patent on any invention that combines old products. The current standard is established and well-thought, wrote lawyers for the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Without the motivation test, there's no standard to determine obviousness, said Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, in an interview. "Things are often obvious in hindsight when they weren't that obvious," he said. "Big un-innovative ... are trying to make the invention game a king's sport because they hate having to compensate inventors."
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The principle of states&#39; rights faced a stiff challenge at the US Supreme Court yesterday, as the justices tried to decide whether federal drug laws should trump a California
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A lawyer for MedImmune Inc. asked the Supreme Court yesterday to let the company sue to overturn a patent owned by Genentech Inc. on a component of MedImmune's blockbuster drug Synagis, even though MedImmune is paying royalties to use it.
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The Justice Department asked the US Supreme Court Tuesday to hear argument on whether federal anti-drug law can trump Oregon&#39;s assisted suicide law.