Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- an article about “[a] Bristol Myers Squibb Co subsidiary on Monday los[ing] a renewed bid for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a 2021 decision that invalidated its cancer-drug patent and overturned a $1.2 billion infringement award it won”; and
- another article arguing that broad functional patent claims suppress medical innovation.
Blake Brittain wrote an article for Reuters about “[a] Bristol Myers Squibb Co subsidiary on Monday los[ing] a renewed bid for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a 2021 decision that invalidated its cancer-drug patent and overturned a $1.2 billion infringement award it won against . . . Kite Pharma.” Brittain reported how the “[t]he dispute . . . centers on Kite’s drug Yescarta, a biologic medication for treating lymphoma” and whose sales “reached nearly $700 million in 2021.” Brittain also discussed how, in the initial lawsuit, “[a] jury awarded the plaintiffs $778 million in damages, which a judge later increased to $1.2 billion,” but also how the Federal Circuit subsequently reversed the judgment.
Irena Royzman authored an article for Bloomberg Law arguing that broad functional patent claims suppress medical innovation. Royzman pointed to functional antibody claims as an example. Royzman dicussed how, since “[f]unctional antibody claims are broad and cover millions of potential antibodies that bind a target,” these “patent claims have been invalidated for not teaching which antibodies may have the desired function and how to make such antibodies.”