Posts Tagged: "patent settlement"

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.

IPR Settlements: A pyrrhic victory for patent practitioners, a loss for patent owners

Howard further explained, however, that it is a mistake to think that characterizing IPR settlements as a “win” is the only way to look at it… In many of these settlements there will already be a finding by the PTAB that the claims are likely invalid, and even with a settlement that finding will linger long past the life of the proceeding. Furthermore, a patent remaining valid and therefore the case being won from the patent practitioner perspective is very different than how it would be perceived from the patent owner perspective. A patent owner who must give a no-cost license to infringers to keep a wounded patent which has been found to have claims that are likely infringed is not a win. Therefore, any objective thinking, sane, rational person should appreciate that IPR settlements are not a win from the patent owner perspective, which is exactly what we’ve said all along.

Capitulation Settlements in IPR are No Win for Patent Owners

Unified Patents challenges patents by filing inter partes review proceedings. They tout on their website that they are “the only entity that challenges bad patents and never pays.” They also explain that they do settle post grant challenges provided the settlement will remain confidential and further provided the patent owner agrees to provide a no-cost license… How is a no-cost license given to an IPR petitioner anything other than complete and total capitulation? Complete and total capitulation in the real world is not a victory for the patent owner; it is an unequivocal loss.

TiVo settlement with Samsung is latest successful litigation outcome involving DVR patents

Digital video recording (DVR) development company TiVo recently settled a patent infringement litigation, which it had filed last year against South Korean electronics giant Samsung. The settlement includes an intellectual property licensing agreement which will be in force for at least five years which will allow Samsung to continue providing DVR technologies in the U.S. market. TiVo first filed suit against Samsung last September in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.). The patent infringement complaint alleged that set-top boxes produced and marketed by Samsung to television service providers offered DVR technology which infringed upon a series of four TiVo patents.

Why should litigation costs of the infringer be relevant to determine if a license is fair or just a nuisance?

Why should the costs of the tortfeasing infringer be relevant in determining whether the extracted value from a settlement is fair? The fact that law firms charge a lot of money to defend patent infringement cases, and don’t particularly have any incentive to settle cases early, somehow translates into certain settlements being for nuisance value without any consideration of whether the settlement is a fair value for the rights trampled upon by the infringer? The FTC has quite a lot of explaining to do, because it seems they picked an arbitrary number that is a function of what attorneys ordinarily charge infringing defendants through discovery. I don’t see how that is a function of the value of the innovation, or how it says anything about the merits of the infringement case, the damages case, or the tactics of the patent owner. In fact, it seems as if the $300,000 figure is completely irrelevant.