Fed. Circ. Voids Allergan's $39M Trial Win Over Eyelash Patent

By Theresa Schliep

The Federal Circuit on Tuesday reversed a $39 million verdict against Sandoz in Allergan's suit accusing it of infringing an eyelash growth drug patent, finding a Colorado federal jury should have found the patent claim at issue invalid for inadequate written description.

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Ex-FDA Chief Accuses J&J Of Hiding Talc Risks For 50 Years

By Craig Clough

A former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration spent a contentious day under cross-examination Tuesday in a Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims that Johnson & Johnson's talc products caused two women's ovarian cancer, accusing the company of hiding the products' health risks for over 50 years.

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Feds Say Hi-Tech 'Trampled' Trust At Close Of Fraud Trial

By Chart Riggall

Federal prosecutors closed out a nearly monthlong fraud trial against Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals and its longtime CEO by telling a Georgia jury Tuesday that they "proudly" stood by what defense attorneys for the supplement manufacturer and distributor previously derided as a "paper case."

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Severe SC Abortion Bill Falters in Committee

By Hannah Albarazi

A South Carolina bill that would have further criminalized abortion and subjected patients and doctors to up to 30 years in prison failed to advance out of a Senate committee on Tuesday, with antiabortion committee members raising concerns that the bill went too far.

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1st Circ. May Nix Trump Funding Freeze In 'Weird' Case

By Chris Villani

The First Circuit on Tuesday hinted that a federal judge may have been in bounds when blocking the Trump administration from withholding certain funds for states, expressing skepticism that the judge's order was improper or overly broad.

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Purdue's $7.4B Ch. 11 Plan Jibes With New Release Paradigm

By Vince Sullivan

A New York bankruptcy judge gave a bench ruling Tuesday explaining his decision to confirm Purdue's $7.4 billion Chapter 11 plan, which transforms the pharmaceutical giant into a public benefit company, ruling that liability releases fully comply with new restrictions imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

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IBM, Qualcomm Lead Public Cos. In Patented Inventions

By Dani Kass

IBM Corp. holds the most patent families of all S&P 100 companies, followed by Qualcomm Inc. and Microsoft Corp., according to an IFI Claims Patent Services report released Tuesday.

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CVS Pays $18.2M To Settle False Claims Act Allegations

By Rae Ann Varona

CVS Pharmacy Inc. paid the federal government and California a total of $18.2 million to settle allegations it submitted claims for medication reimbursements without verifying that the medications would be for approved diagnoses, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced.

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Merck Wins Final PTAB Fight Against Johns Hopkins

By Dani Kass

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidated a cancer treatment patent owned by Johns Hopkins University, marking a full victory on the nine challenges Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC initiated against the university's patents. 

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Lower Costs No Cause For VA To Shirk Trade Act, Judge Says

By Tom Lotshaw

A federal judge said the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs can't use the lower cost of drugs from countries not designated under the Trade Agreements Act to reject the higher prices of companies that propose to source them from compliant countries.

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J&J Unit Fights $12M Verdict While Rival Wants More Money

By Dani Kass

A Delaware federal jury was wrong when it determined that Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy Synthes should pay RSB Spine $12 million for infringing spinal fusion patents under the doctrine of equivalents, DePuy said Monday.

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Bristol-Myers Squibb Can Appeal Pension Suit To 2nd Circ.

By Kellie Mejdrich

Drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and its investment manager can ask the Second Circuit to review a decision from September denying their motion to dismiss a pension dispute for lack of standing, a New York federal judge ruled.

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Agilent Wants Justices To Eye Invalidation Of CRISPR Patents

By Adam Lidgett

Agilent Technologies wants the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its challenge to a Federal Circuit finding that claims in a pair of its patents on the gene-editing tool CRISPR were invalid, arguing the decision conflicts with rules on which side faces the burden of proving invalidity.

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Ill. Justices Mull If Permits Override Pollution Exclusions

By Celeste Bott

Counsel for a sterilization company and its former parent seeking defense costs for hundreds of lawsuits over ethylene oxide emissions at a suburban Chicago facility urged the Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday to find a pollution exclusion in their insurance policy doesn't apply to emissions allowed under a state permit, insisting the policyholders are not polluters under Illinois law or "in the general sense of the word."

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Perrigo Sued Over Misstatements On Infant Formula Business

By Katryna Perera

Perrigo Company PLC faces a shareholder class action alleging the company and its top brass failed to disclose critical issues with infant formula operations that it purchased from Nestle and caused stock prices to drop as the issues came to light.

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23andMe Seeks OK On Updated $9M Settlement

By Emlyn Cameron

23andMe asked a Missouri bankruptcy judge to approve a deal that will modify a settlement with data breach claimants to encompass more claims and pay $9 million, saying doing so will avoid litigation.

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Surveying The Healthcare Policy Landscape Post-Shutdown

With last week's agreement to reopen the federal government, at least through the end of January, key healthcare legislation that has been in limbo since a December 2024 spending bill fell apart may recapture the attention of Congress, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

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Litigation Funding Could Create Ethics Issues For Attorneys

A litigation investor’s recent complaint claiming a New York mass torts lawyer effectively ran a Ponzi scheme illustrates how litigation funding arrangements can subject attorneys to legal ethics dilemmas and potential liability, so engagement letters must have very clear terms, says Matthew Feinberg at Goldberg Segalla.

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Bonus Spotlight

Cravath Unveils Associate Bonuses, Multiple Firms Follow

By Aebra Coe

Multiple firms swiftly fell in line Tuesday evening just hours after Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP announced associate bonuses in line with those offered last year, continuing a long tradition of BigLaw firms following Cravath's lead on compensation.

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Pillsbury Winthrop Latest Firm Targeted By Data Breach Suit

By Hailey Konnath

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP on Tuesday was hit with a proposed class action stemming from a data breach the firm says happened in April, adding to the growing litigation firms are facing in the aftermath of cyberattacks.

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Analysis

Perkins Coie's Trump Fight Doesn't Scare Off UK Suitor

By Chris Villani

Perkins Coie LLP's ongoing fight with the Trump administration did not deter a proposed combination with British law firm Ashurst, signaling that the legal community is not worried about fallout from the president's suspension of the firm's security clearances.

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Republican Senators Seek Judge Boasberg's Suspension

By Courtney Bublé

Six Republican senators, three of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are asking that Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of the District of Columbia be administratively suspended while Congress considers his impeachment.

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Sanctioned Atty Convinces Mo. Court Errors Not Caused By AI

By Emily Sawicki

A Missouri federal judge sanctioned former counsel for Liberty Mutual Personal Insurance Co. Monday for including citation errors in a motion this fall, finding that, although the attorney likely inserted the errors herself without the use of AI software, "such carelessness, exacerbated by a lack of internal guardrails, is entirely unacceptable."

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Brief

Conn. Atty Fined $500 For AI-Generated Errors In Wage Suit

By Emily Sawicki

In an order that noted an attorney's remorse, a Connecticut federal judge sanctioned a solo practitioner $500 this week for submitting a brief packed with false, AI-generated case citations, finding the fake authorities wasted court resources, risked misleading a pro se litigant and undermined trust in the judicial system.

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Disbarred NC Atty Must Pay $5.2M For Escrow Fund Misuse

By Abigail Harrison

A disbarred attorney was ordered to pay $5.2 million in restitution and serve four years of probation during a Tuesday sentencing hearing in North Carolina federal court, after he pled guilty to a criminal wire fraud charge related to the misuse of escrow funds.

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Judge Upholds NY Law Blocking ICE Courthouse Arrests

By Andrea Keckley

New York beat back a federal lawsuit challenging the state's policy barring immigration officials from arresting people near its courthouses, after a federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice's preemption claims.

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NY AG James Blasts 'Outrageous Conduct' Behind Indictment

By Adrian Cruz

New York Attorney General Letitia A. James has told a Virginia federal court to dismiss the U.S. government's indictment of her, calling it "patently unconstitutional" and "outrageous conduct."

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McGuireWoods Is Delaying Defamation Case, NC Justices Told

By Hayley Fowler

The former CEO of a managed care organization who alleges McGuireWoods and one of its ex-partners defamed him during a press conference more than seven years ago has told North Carolina's top court not to take up the case, panning their petition as yet another stalling tactic.

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Brief

Missouri Federal Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool of the Western District of Missouri has given notice he will take senior status upon the confirmation of state Judge Megan Benton, whose nomination to the federal bench President Donald Trump announced Friday.

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CFPB's Gradler Takes Deputy Post Amid Agency Uncertainty

By Jon Hill

Geof Gradler, a former industry lobbyist who recently joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's front office, said that he is taking over as the agency's deputy director, a job that positions him as a potential successor to acting director Russell Vought.

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