February 06, 2018
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a district court's finding that Hospira doesn't infringe two blood thinner patents belonging to The Medicines Co., but remanded the question of whether The Medicines Co.'s distribution agreement with another company would render the patents invalid under the so-called on-sale bar.
July 11, 2016
The full Federal Circuit's decision Monday that outsourcing manufacturing does not necessarily trigger the on-sale bar in patent cases aids drugmakers and others that cannot make products in-house, discarding a prior ruling that put their patents at a high risk of being invalidated, attorneys say.
July 11, 2016
The full Federal Circuit ruled Monday that the on-sale bar invalidating a patent is triggered only by a transaction that "bears the general hallmarks of a sale," holding that The Medicines Co.'s deal with a supplier for experimental batches of the blood thinner Angiomax did not invalidate its patents.
July 01, 2016
The U.S. Supreme Court’s first design patent case in over a century will determine whether Apple’s $400 million damages award against rival Samsung was excessive, and the justices will also consider whether a patent owner’s delay in filing suit can be a defense to infringement. Here are the patent cases attorneys are watching in the second half of 2016.
May 05, 2016
Generic drugmaker Hospira urged the full Federal Circuit bench Thursday not to exempt medicine-manufacturing contracts from the types of product sales that bar patent applications, arguing such a "sweeping change" in the law would discourage early patent filings and damage the system as a whole.
May 04, 2016
The full Federal Circuit will hear arguments Thursday in a patent case over the blood-thinning drug Angiomax that could narrow the reach of the on-sale bar and protect companies from invalidity findings if they outsource some parts of the manufacturing process for their inventions.
March 15, 2016
Hospira Inc. on Monday protested calls for the Federal Circuit to limit the on-sale bar to patenting inventions to public sales or exclude confidential sales, arguing inventors could game the system to extend the term of their patents.
March 04, 2016
The U.S. Patent and Trade Office, drug industry groups and intellectual property attorneys have urged the Federal Circuit to reverse a panel decision invalidating two of The Medicines Co.'s patents for the blood-thinning drug Angiomax, as the court prepares to consider questions about what constitutes an on-sale bar.
January 21, 2016
The American Intellectual Property Law Association has told the full Federal Circuit that it should rethink its framework for applying the on-sale bar, which the court is examining as part of a case involving a blood-thinning drug, saying that not all transactions between inventors and suppliers should trigger the ban.
January 13, 2016
Hospira Inc. has urged the full Federal Circuit to overrule a trial court and find that the on-sale bar, which prohibits patents on inventions that were on sale a year before the patent was filed, was triggered when The Medicines Co. paid a supplier to make numerous batches of the blood-thinning drug Angiomax.