Posts Tagged: "generic"

Selecting the Right Trademark for Your Business

From a legal standpoint, a trademark that has no relation to the product or services offered will be the strongest type of mark. For example, trademarks such as “Google” for a search engine, “eBay” for online auctions and “Bose” for audio equipment make excellent and strong trademarks. Descriptive marks provide less trademark protection because if a term is descriptive it can be used by anyone else selling the same goods or providing the same services… Many sales and marketing people will gravitate toward descriptive marks for products and services hoping that potential customers will immediately identify the product or service being offered. This approach leads to a weak or sometimes even unprotectable trademarks.

St. Regis Mohawks, BIO send letters to Senate Judiciary slamming the unfair playing field of IPRs at PTAB

On Thursday, October 12th, a pair of letters addressed to the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee were delivered in an attempt to inform Senators on that committee of various issues in play regarding the recent patent deal between multinational pharmaceutical firm Allergan and the sovereign St. Regis Mohawk Tribe. The two groups sending the letters represent stakeholders in the U.S. patent system coming from very different backgrounds who realize that there are fundamental flaws in the system created by inter partes review (IPR) proceedings which are carried out at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

Patent settlement between AbbVie and Amgen delays Humira generic until 2023

On Thursday, September 28th, a judge in the District of Delaware entered an order stipulating dismissal in a patent infringement case brought by North Chicago-based pharmaceutical firm AbbVie (NYSE:ABBV) against Thousand Oaks, CA-based drugmaker Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN). According to reports, the settlement follows an agreement between the two companies to delay a generic version of the anti-inflammatory drug Humira from the U.S. market until 2023… Of AbbVie’s total $6.94 billion in net revenues from U.S. and international sales during the quarter, Humira contributed $4.71 billion in revenues.

San Diego Comic Con succeeds on several motions in trademark infringement case against Salt Lake City Comic Con event organizers

On September 12th, Judge Anthony Battaglia of the Southern District of California entered an order granting motions made by the San Diego Comic Convention in a trademark case over the use of the Comic-Con title on pop culture conventions. The order also denies motions made by a Utah-based entity which has presented a biannual Salt Lake Comic Con since 2013… The recent order entered in the Southern California case denied Dan Farr Productions’ motion to exclude testimony from an expert witness testifying for plaintiff San Diego Comic Convention while also granting a motion by San Diego to deny an expert presented by Dan Farr. Dan Farr tried to argue that San Diego’s expert witness, which included the results of a Teflon survey on the generic nature of the term “Comic-Con”, as such evidence only matters in genericide cases and not where the trademark was generic prior to the owner’s use. However, the defendant’s own pleading in the counterclaim, where it asserted a defense of generic mark, and the court found the evidence to be relevant to the case.

Patent battle over generic Inomax leaves five Mallinckrodt patents invalid as naturally occurring phenomenon

A memorandum signed by Judge Sleet shows that Mallinckrodt’s patents were invalidated under the Section 101 patentability standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012’s Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., a standard affirmed by SCOTUS’ 2014 decision in Alice Corporation v. CLS Bank International. Applying the two-step test for Section 101 patentability, the Delaware court found that the Mallinckrodt patents covered natural phenomenon which did not include an inventive step. The court found that patent claim limitations directed at echocardiography or severe adverse reactions did not satisfy the inventive concept step. “It does not matter what the severe adverse reaction is,” Judge Sleet’s memo reads. “Any reaction to treatment with iNO will be a natural phenomenon, dictated by the patient’s physiological response to the drug.”