Posts Tagged: "In re K-Dur Antitrust Litigation"

Supreme Court Agrees To Tackle Drug Patent Settlements

In the past several years, the Second, Eleventh, and Federal Circuits have upheld these settlements (known as “reverse payment” agreements since the money flows from the patentee to the alleged infringer rather than the other way around). These courts have focused on the benefits of settling cases and the presumption of patent validity, and they have explained that payments fall within the “scope of the patent.” In contrast, the Third Circuit recently applied more aggressive scrutiny, rejecting the scope test and finding that payments for delay were “prima facie evidence of an unreasonable restraint of trade.”

Reverse Payment Home Run for Pharma Antitrust Enforcement

One of the most complex issues in antitrust and patent law today involves agreements by which brand-name drug companies pay generics to delay entering the market. In the past decade, with the Supreme Court showing no interest in wading into the area, the Federal, Second, and Eleventh Circuits have upheld these agreements. And, with each court relying on its sister court, a momentum had developed that made it nearly impossible to discern a role for antitrust scrutiny. The Third Circuit just found that a reverse payment was “prima facie evidence of an unreasonable restraint of trade.”