Posts Tagged: "inequitable conduct"

Earlier today, Judge Garrett Brown of the United States Federal District Court for the District of New Jersey, issued an Order and Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in the dispute between between Merck and Teva Pharmaceuticals.  Judge Brown found that the patent in question, US Patent No. 5,565,473, was valid and enforceable, and that the Teva’s Abbreviated New…

Dr. Chris Mammen On August 4, 2009, the Federal Circuit decided Exergen Corp. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., et al., Case Nos. 2006-1491, 2007-1180 (Fed. Cir. 2009). In a post to this blog several months ago, I argued that Congress, the Supreme Court or the Federal Circuit should reform the doctrine of inequitable conduct this year, to rein in the resurgent…

In order to jump start a constructive debate I throw out the following nine suggestions that would, in my view, assist in solving the patent crisis that we are in; a crisis that could easily lead to the irrelevance of the US patent system as a whole. 1. Revise the Examiner Quota System This is not the first time I…

Those who are not familiar with patent law should not comment on patent law as if they are experts, announcing ridiculous propositions that they don’t understand.  It is silly for the many commentators and journalists out there to think that they can read a little about patent law and become conversant in the intricacies, offer opinions and suggestions and portray…

As of today, legislative patent reform efforts are working their way through Congress. We are further along the road to legislative reform than at any point in time over the last 4 years, but the ultimate outcome is still not certain. The Senate Judiciary Committee has reported out a version of patent reform, so there is a real expectation that…

Last Thursday I wrote regarding the USPTO, GlaxoSmithKline and Dr. Tafas jointly requesting an extension of time within which to either request reconsideration or rehearing en banc of the Federal Circuit’s decision in the claims and continuations saga.  This morning I learned that the Federal Circuit has granted the requested extension of time, so the parties have until the end…

Today, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Aventis v. Amphastar (Docket No. 08-937). Inequitable conduct was the sole issue presented in the cert petition, which Aventis filed on January 23, 2009. According to the procedural summary in Aventis’ cert petition, the Federal Circuit held the patent on Aventis’ $2 billion-per-year drug to be unenforceable due to inequitable conduct because of…

Dr. Chris Mammen focuses his practice on patent and related intellectual property litigation and appeals. Twenty years ago, in the 1988 Burlington case, the Federal Circuit expressed its displeasure with the frequent assertion of the inequitable conduct defense in patent litigation, famously calling it a “plague.” Later that year, in the en banc portion of the Kingsdown case, the Federal…

According to Reuters, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) says that the House and Senate are close to agreeing on language for a patent reform bill that would virtually ensure its passage. According to Hatch, patent reform will happen this year, saying that he would be shocked if patent reform was not enacted in 2009. Hatch says “[th]is is the closest we’ve…

Not long ago the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Abbott Laboratories v. Sandoz, Inc., a decision that just screams for Congress to codify Rule 56 and settle once and for all the duty of candor that is owed to the Patent Office during the patent application process. To be perfectly clear, it…

Over the past several years I have been a harsh critic of the United States Patent & Trademark Office because there are substantial problems facing the US patent system and I do not believe any of the reforms urged by the USPTO are calculated in any meaningful way to address those problems.  According to the recently released 2008 USPTO Performance…