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
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
The European Commission (EC) and other national competition authorities (NCAs) have traditionally shied away from investigating allegations of excessive pricing and appearing as price regulators. Commissioner Vestager warned...more
Addressing a pay-for-delay and pharmaceutical-settlement antitrust jury trial for the first time since the 2012 Supreme Court of the United States decision in FTC v. Actavis (IP Update, Vol. 16, No. 7), the US Court of...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
In the first decision by a federal appeals court interpreting the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in FTC v. Actavis, the Third Circuit recently held in King Drug Co. of Florence v. SmithKline Beecham Corp. that so-called...more
Nearly two years ago the Supreme Court issued its opinion in FTC v. Actavis, 133 S. Ct. 2223 (2013), holding that a reverse payment made by a brand manufacturer to a generic manufacturer to resolve pending patent litigation...more
In two recent statements, the FTC reaffirmed its intention aggressively to pursue reverse-payment patent settlement agreements in the pharmaceutical industry. ...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
For over a decade, the antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission have challenged the type of patent settlement where a brand-name drug manufacturer pays a prospective generic manufacturer to settle patent...more
In Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., the Supreme Court held that reverse payment (“pay-for-delay”) settlement agreements made in the context of settling Hatch-Waxman ANDA litigation should be evaluated for antitrust...more
This week, the Supreme Court announced that “reverse payment” settlements of patent litigation between branded and generic pharmaceutical companies are, when challenged in a subsequent antitrust case, to be judged under the...more
On June 17, 2013, after years of litigation in the lower courts, the United States Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in FTC v. Actavis. The 5-3 decision, however, did not have a clear winner, and the case was...more
In the most significant patent antitrust decision in decades, Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., No. 12-416, 2013 WL 2922122 (June 17, 2013), the Supreme Court has held, by a 5-3 vote with Justice Alito recused, that...more
SUMMARY OF DECISION - In FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. ____ (Slip Op. June 17, 2013), the Supreme Court addressed for the first time the underlying antitrust merits of the Federal Trade Commission’s long-running...more
The Supreme Court ruled 5-3 on June 17, 2013 in favor of the Federal Trade Commission in FTC v. Actavis. Writing for the majority that included Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan, Justice Breyer’s opinion...more
In Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., No. 12-416, 2013 U.S. LEXIS 4545 (U.S. June 17, 2013), the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit decision in FTC v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 677 F.3d 1298 (2012),...more