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
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
This past year has seen renewed challenges to reverse payment settlement agreements in the pharmaceutical industry. Since the Supreme Court’s Actavis decision in mid-2013, potentially anti-competitive agreements are...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
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an antitrust complaint this week against Endo Pharmaceuticals and several generic companies, alleging that these companies entered into anticompetitive “reverse payment” settlements of...more
In the ongoing battles over the antitrust treatment of pharmaceutical patent settlements, the Federal Trade Commission and private industry have not agreed on much. But a recent FTC amicus brief appears to signal a high level...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
Drug company Turing Pharmaceuticals made headlines recently when it reportedly raised the price of Daraprim, used commonly by AIDS patients to fight life-threatening infections, from $13.50 to $750 per tablet. Amidst...more
Addressing for the first time whether reverse settlement agreements involving non-cash consideration merit antitrust scrutiny, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the district court, applying the...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
In FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2223 (2013), the Supreme Court reversed and remanded to the district court to apply a rule of reason analysis to defendants’ reverse payment settlement. On remand, defendants Solvay and...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
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
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
In Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., the Supreme Court, in a 5-3 decision written by Justice Breyer, reversed the Eleventh Circuit's dismissal of an FTC complaint under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission...more
In FTC v. Actavis, the Supreme Court held that “reverse payment” pharma patent settlements within the scope of the patent may (or may not) violate the Sherman Act.1 The majority opinion in Actavis explained that Hatch-Waxman...more
Earlier this month, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) held a press conference to announce the release of a study of the effects of reverse settlement payment agreements in ANDA litigation. ...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
On June 17, 2013, in FTC v. Actavis, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs may bring antitrust suits against so-called “reverse payment” or “pay-for-delay” settlements, under which pioneer and generic...more
In this Issue: - Focus On The Federal Trade Commission - Supreme Court Decision in FTC v. Actavis Provides Guidance on Pay-for-Delay - DOJ Prevails on Liability in eBooks Antitrust Case in the Southern District...more
On June 17, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that addressed a “reverse payment” settlement agreement between a brand-name pharmaceutical company (plaintiff patent holder) and multiple generic drug companies...more
One of the most controversial antitrust issues for the pharmaceutical industry during the last decade has been the treatment of patent settlements in which a patent-holding branded manufacturer made payments to its generic...more
On June 17, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) antitrust challenge to a reverse payment settlement agreement between drug manufacturers, otherwise known as a “pay-for-delay”...more