UPDATED -- 08.19.09 @ 1:15 PM EDT: It seems the judge ruled in favor of Merck, in part, on the basis that Merck's patent lawyer did not read some of the prior art -- that is, he felt mere lack of diligence (in not reading, and thus not pointing out to the USPTO, the specific portions of the so-called Young 89 prior art -- art that turned out to be highly-relevant to making the specific montelukast compound now known as Singulair®) should not be considered "inequitable conduct". [Full 102 page decision, as a PDF file, available shortly.]
Teva loses Singular® (montelukast) patent spat; may appeal -- but generic Singular is now a 2012 certainty.Per AP wire-stories:
. . . .In his decision, Judge Garrett E. Brown upheld Merck's patent on SINGULAIR and ruled that Teva committed infringement. Judge Brown also issued an injunction blocking the approval of Teva's generic versions until the August 2012 expiration of the patent.
"The court appropriately ruled that the patent for SINGULAIR in the U.S. is valid," said Bruce Kuhlik, executive vice president and general counsel of Merck. "We invest heavily in the R&D that is needed to discover innovative medicines like SINGULAIR, and we will vigorously defend our intellectual property rights."
Merck filed the patent infringement lawsuit against Teva in February 2007. The trial was heard before Judge Brown in February 2009. . . .
Indeed. This likely spells the end of the insurers' and wholesalers' antitrust claims -- as well.
I'll keep you informed -- on that -- though.
4 comments:
If would be interesting to know the Judge's rationale.
You discussed the prior art regarding the tertiary alcohol the other day.
http://shearlingsplowed.blogspot.com/2009/08/merck-and-teva-both-awaiting-decision.html
So it would be interesting to see on what basis he upheld the patent. Whether he held this was not important or if he said it was but did not overcome other aspects of the patent.
Salmon
Hey Salmon -- I am going to add it as an update -- I just got my hands on the Judge's findings of fact, and conclusions of law.
See above, shortly.
Namaste
Thank you.
I'm amazed at the amount of effort you put into this blog. Especially since you mentioned in the previous post you have limited time today.
I'm even more amazed by the very few mistakes I see in typos or any other problems. I know when I post comments and read them later sometimes the mistakes are due to cutting and pasting in blogger but many times they're just due to my own lack of proofreading.
I'm also amazed at your breadth (now some chemistry and patent law), photoshop, finance, and ability to track so many sources. Perhaps the last is due to technology but I know so many people who simply don't keep up, even myself I'm fairly computer literate I have trouble keeping up with learning new applications (or even the changes in MS word).
Salmon
Heh! -- taking a lunch-break, outside now -- doing it from my iPhone. . . .
But yes, I do get auto-feeds from all over the web -- many, many sources -- so it is actually just a lot of "cut and paste", on the fly. . . .
Just a breather from what would otherwise be the regular day's tedium. . . .
Namaste
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