Sanjeev Mahanta, Ph.D., J.D. Image

Sanjeev Mahanta, Ph.D., J.D.

is a patent attorney whose practice focuses on prosecution of domestic and international patent applications. Sanjeev helps clients obtain patents across a wide technology spectrum including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, chemistry, materials science, and medical devices.

For more information or to contact Sanjeev, please visit his LinkedIn profile.

Recent Articles by Sanjeev Mahanta, Ph.D., J.D.

Teaching Away, Commercial Success, and Blocking Patent Doctrines All Under the CAFC Spotlight

In The Chemours Company FC, LLC v. Daikin Industries, Ltd., Nos. 2020-1289, 2020-1290 (Fed. Cir. July 22, 2021) (“Chemours v. Daikin”), the Federal Circuit clarified three doctrines involved in the determination of obviousness: teaching away, commercial success, and blocking patents. While all three panel judges agreed that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) misapplied the commercial success and blocking patents doctrines, they disagreed as to the Board’s application of the teaching away doctrine. In contrast to the Board, the majority found evidence of teaching away in the prior art. But Judge Dyk, dissenting, found no such evidence and called the majority’s determination an impermissible expansion of the doctrine that now encompassed a reference’s mere preference for a particular alternative.

Biogen v. Banner: Patent Term Extension Inquiry Centers on ‘Active Ingredient’, Not ‘Active Moiety’

Section 156 of the Hatch-Waxman Act provides for restoring some of a patent’s term consumed during clinical testing and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review of a New Drug Application (NDA) for a product covered by the patent. The extension afforded under Section 156 is of great importance to a drug manufacturer given that development of a new drug from discovery through FDA approval often takes a decade or more (10-15 years), leading to the loss of a significant portion of the term of a patent covering the drug. The dispute in Biogen International Gmbh v. Banner Life Sciences LLC, No. 2020-1373 (Fed. Cir. April 21, 2020) (Biogen v. Banner) centers around the very meaning of the term “product” as used in Section 156.