Reverse payments settlements between patent holders and would-be generic competitors in the pharmaceutical industry should be reviewed under a “quick look” rule of reason analysis based on the economic realities of the reverse payment settlement, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled today. The appellate court decided that wholesalers and retailers who purchased a…
When competitors form a truce, consumers need to worry because often they find ways to make consumers pay more by cutting off competition. Nowhere is that a more big-ticket concern than an alliance between Nokia and Microsoft, waging a potential patent war on their smart phone rivals and potentially costing consumers millions of dollars in…
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision that provides generic pharmaceutical manufacturers with the ability to challenge the “use codes” listed by brand name manufacturers in filings made with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). The decision in Caraco v. Novo Nordisk illustrates the impact that these “use codes” can have on the…
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta today rejected the Federal Trade Commission’s challenge to a patent litigation settlement between brand name and generic drug companies as an unlawful agreement not to compete in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act. The FTC brought the case in 2009 against Solvay Pharmaceuticals and generic manufacturers…
As tech companies prepare for the holiday season retail wars, touting products with cutting-edge technologies, a costly war is unfolding in corporate America: a war for patents and, more importantly, an arms race to seek protection from frivolous patent-infringement lawsuits. Because of weaknesses in our patent system, companies have started using patents strategically, threatening litigation…
The following is an excerpt of an article that appeared in The Computer & Internet Lawyer, Volume 28, Number 6, June 2011. Never ask for whom the bell tolls. Computer and Internet lawyers should be following developments in the law affecting the rights of innovator and generic pharmaceutical manufacturers to settle their Hatch-Waxman patent infringement…
It is traditional in beginning an article on antitrust law and intellectual property to note the tension―or, as some would put it, the conflict―when the two intersect. And there is certainly support in the earlier case law for that point of view. As the Second Circuit observed in SCM Corp. v. Xerox Corp., 645 F.2d…
