In the ten years since the Supreme Court ruled in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis that reverse payment settlements—or settlements where a patent holder pays an accused patent infringer cash or other consideration to end...more
Hosted by ACI, 18th Annual Paragraph IV Disputes Conference returns to New York City for another exciting year with curated programming that not only addresses the hot topics, but also puts them within the context of pre-suit...more
Premier forum which shapes the law, policy, and proceedings of Paragraph IV Litigation is back to New York City on April 26-27! Pharmaceutical patent practitioners from across the globe attend this flagship conference to...more
For nearly a decade, the Supreme Court’s FTC v. Actavis decision has guided pharmaceutical litigators and advisors exploring the antitrust risks inherent in settling pharmaceutical patent lawsuits, especially when such...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) spent the better part of a decade attacking the practice of innovator drug companies settling ANDA litigation by providing payments to generic applicants challenging the validity of Orange...more
On December 3, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published its annual report on pharmaceutical patent settlements filed with the FTC under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003...more
On February 3, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and the Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") issued a joint statement and plan seeking to advance biosimilar competition and combat deceptive and anticompetitive...more
On February 3, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a joint statement announcing their plans to collaborate in promoting competitive biological product markets and...more
A new California law, Preserving Access to Affordable Drugs, AB-824 (the Act), which is aimed at curbing reverse-payment patent settlements, took effect on January 1. The Act codifies a presumption that any transfer of value...more
On October 26, the Boston Patent Law Association will host a panel featuring Judge William Young to discuss the legal landscape following the Supreme Court’s 2014 opinion in Actavis v. FTC...more
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in FTC v. Actavis, finding that although so-called reverse payment settlement agreements were not per se antitrust violations in cases brought against generic drug makers...more
Patent settlement agreements were traditionally deemed outside the purview of antitrust scrutiny unless the patent holder’s conduct fell outside the legitimate scope of the patent’s exclusionary power. This all changed when...more
Last week I posted on the European Commission’s (EC) latest report into patent settlement agreements between originator and generic companies in the European Union (EU). The EC says each time it produces these reports that...more
Textile Copyright Cases Ripe for ADR - While normally focused on music and media matters, copyright lawyers in California have grown busy with something else: fabrics. Hundreds of textile copyright suits involving fabric...more
Federal Circuit Interprets Statutory Requirements for Biosimilar Regulatory Pathway - Amgen Inc., v. Sandoz Inc., (Fed. Cir. July 21, 2015): In a case of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal...more
In recent years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has refocused its efforts on the interplay between the patent system and antitrust law, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry. While most of this focus has manifested...more
Recently, the Third Circuit issued the first federal appellate decision interpreting the Supreme Court's landmark decision in FTC v. Actavis, Inc.[1], potentially greatly expanding the scope of settling parties in reverse...more
Recently, the FTC announced that it reached a settlement in its pay-for-delay lawsuit, FTC v. Cephalon Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, with Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries, Ltd.,...more
In This Issue: - INTRODUCTION - WHAT ARE REVERSE PAYMENT SETTLEMENT AGREEMENTS? ..The Basic Framework of Hatch-Waxman Litigation ..The Federal Trade Commission’s View of Reverse Payment Settlements and Its...more
In two recent statements, the FTC reaffirmed its intention aggressively to pursue reverse-payment patent settlement agreements in the pharmaceutical industry. ...more
Reflecting upon the events of the past twelve months, Patent Docs presents its seventh annual list of top biotech/pharma patent stories. For 2013, we identified fourteen stories that were covered on Patent Docs last year...more
If the uncertainty that the Supreme Court’s Actavis decision injected into the world of reverse-payment settlement litigation wasn’t enough to get your attention, then the FTC’s recent effort to obtain disgorgement from...more
In this Issue: - New Developments - U.S. Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Patent Agreements That Postpone the Sale of Generic Drugs Violate Antitrust Laws - Direct Purchasers Have Standing to Bring Antitrust...more
United States antitrust laws seek to encourage free and open competition by preventing exclusionary conduct that threatens the competitive process. Intellectual property rights (IPR) laws, by contrast, are designed to...more
Patent rights and antitrust law contain inherently antagonistic policies: While antitrust law is aimed at preventing monopolies and promoting competition, patent law explicitly rewards inventors with a time-limited right to...more