Posts Tagged: "blocking patent"

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.

Blockbuster Restasis Patent Goes Down at Federal Circuit a Victim of Rule 36

Without any explanation, analysis or justification, Chief Judge Prost, and Judges Reyna and Hughes affirmed the decision of colleague Judge Bryson. A patent to a blockbuster drug like Restasis, which has over $1.4 billion in annual sales in the United States, deserves greater consideration than a once sentence disposition that simply says: “Affirmed.”… It is one thing to use Rule 36 to dispose of an appeal that should never have been brought relating to an invention of modest or no commercial success. But there is something fundamentally arrogant about using Rule 36 to finally strike a fatal blow to a patent covering a blockbuster drug responsible for more than $1.4 billion in annual sales in the United States. And given that the district court judge was Judge Bryson, the lack of an opinion only raises further questions.

Expansion of the Blocking Patent Doctrine: Trading Logic for Gremlins

Since Merck & Co. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals, blocking patent arguments have arisen in the Federal Circuit primarily in the pharmaceutical patent context, and until now have largely been limited to undermining evidence of commercial success. But just like gremlins fed after midnight, this doctrine inevitably spawned unwanted offspring that are now wreaking havoc… Assuming that no one would ever develop a product that might infringe a patent is inconsistent with numerous Federal Circuit realities. It’s right up there with the Tooth Fairy (sorry, kids).

Federal Circuit: Presence of a Blocking Patent Can Negate Strong Objective Indicia of Nonobviousness

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued a ruling affirming a district court’s finding that certain pharmaceutical patent claims owned by Acorda were invalid due to obviousness over the prior art.  The patents’ claims covered a species of a genus taught by the prior art.  The invalidity determination hinged on (1) whether claiming the same concentrations as the prior art, but for a different indication would be obvious to a person having skill in the art; and (2) whether secondary considerations such as solving a long-felt need demonstrated nonobviousness… Strong objective indicia such as solving a long-felt need may be insufficient to prove nonobviousness when a blocking patent deters others from an improvement.