Tag: Patent Law

medieval castle and moat at sunrise with mist over moat and sunlight behind castle

Beyond the Psychedelic Competitive Moat: Chasing the Patent Dragon

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Amanda Rose Pratt and Shahin Shams

In the last five years, the granting of overly broad psychedelic patents led to the creation of the nonprofit online psychedelic prior art library Porta Sophia. As Porta Sophia-affiliated researchers with expertise in psychedelic science, patent law, archival history, and rhetoric, we have come face to face with the way psychedelic hype manifests within the world of psychedelic patent documents.

Here, we examine hype in the context of a perennial tension at the heart of patenting communication: between advertising innovation and keeping it secret. Given the fact that innovators cannot disclose their technological innovations if they hope to gain patent rights over them, and that they simultaneously need to attract investors—often on the merits of their intellectual property portfolios—what public communication strategies emerge? We look closely at the patenting strategies of the psychedelic biotech company MindMed here because their case reveals important insights about the rhetorical dynamics related to tensions around public psychedelic patent communication.

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Torso of doctor in white coat with hands displaying in between them a rendering of an antibody.

The SCOTUS Antibody Ruling Has an Uncertain Impact for Drug Makers and Patients

Timothy Bonis Leave a comment

How Amgen v. Sanofi will affect innovation and the pharmaceutical industry.

By Timothy Bonis

Millions of patients rely on monoclonal antibodies. The global market in 2022 was $210B with a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent. Monoclonal antibody patents are now some of the world’s most valuable intellectual property.

Monoclonal antibody patent law has been in turmoil for the past two decades. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “Federal Circuit”) has repeatedly raised the standards for antibody patents, forcing patentees to rethink how they protect their inventions. In April 2023, the increasingly stringent standards of the Federal Circuit were affirmed by the Supreme Court. In Amgen v. Sanofi, the justices unanimously upheld the invalidation of two antibody patents, potentially transforming patent law across biotech.

This post reviews the emerging post-Amgen literature, distilling the ruling’s likely impact on innovation and the pharmaceutical industry. A companion post addresses the ruling’s legal significance.

This post has three parts. Part I describes monoclonal antibodies and why Amgen is important. Parts II and III address innovation, first by discussing whether Amgen is reflective of modern antibody science and second by exploring how the ruling may affect the pharmaceutical industry.

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Grayslake, IL - January 30, 2021: Drive-through indoor COVID-19 vaccination facility at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake. The facility is dispensing both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine.

COVID-19 Vaccine Patent Infringement? The Battle Between Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Continues

Aparajita Lath Leave a comment

By Aparajita Lath

Last month, the patent battle between COVID-19 mRNA vaccine manufacturers continued with BioNTech/Pfizer filing a strong defense and counter-claim to Moderna’s allegations of patent infringement.

In their initial August 2022 complaint, Moderna alleged that three of its mRNA patents were infringed by Pfizer/BioNTech. Interestingly, as of January 12, 2023, Moderna has listed 10 patents covering Spikevax (its mRNA vaccine) on its website. Since biotechnology inventions can be covered by several patents, each of which may not be easy to identify through public searches, the decision to publish a consolidated list of patents is a move in the right direction. However, the list is an evolving one, and, as it happens, one of three patents at issue, i.e., patent no. 10,933,127 (‘127) has not been listed.

The following article explains the key patents at stake in the intellectual property dispute.

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Get Your Story Straight: Patent Office Cracks Down on Inconsistent Statements Made Before the FDA

Matthew Chun Leave a comment

By Matthew Chun

In an effort to “promote robust and reliable patents” and increase access to life-saving drugs, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued a Federal Register Notice clarifying the responsibilities of individuals involved in the patent application process.

In the July 29, 2022 notice, the USPTO set forth its views on the “duty of disclosure” and “duty of reasonable inquiry,” emphasizing the importance of consistency between statements made to the USPTO, the FDA, and other governmental agencies. While the goals of the Federal Register Notice are certainly noble, its disruptive practical effects leave much to be desired.

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Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany - March 23, 2021: Vials with the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine are used at the corona vaccination centers worldwide.

No Take-Backs: Moderna’s Attempt to Renege on its Vaccine Patent Pledge

Jorge Contreras Leave a comment

By Jorge L. Contreras

On October 8, 2020, Moderna, the maker of one of the first mRNA-based vaccines for COVID-19 and the recipient of billions of dollars of U.S. government funding, announced that it felt “a special obligation … to use our resources to bring this pandemic to an end as quickly as possible.” As a result, it publicly promised that “while the pandemic continues, Moderna will not enforce our COVID-19 related patents against those making vaccines intended to combat the pandemic.” Moderna broke that promise on August 26, 2022, when it sued Pfizer and BioNTech, the producers of a competing mRNA vaccine, for patent infringement in the U.S. and Germany. This post explains why Moderna’s lawsuits should fail given its irrevocable and continuing nonenforcement pledge.

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POPLAR affiliated reseachers

Introducing Affiliated Researchers for the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment
(Clockwise from top left: Kwasi Adusei, Ismail Lourido Ali, Jonathan Perez-Reyzin, Dustin Marlan.)

We are excited to welcome our inaugural group of affiliated researchers for the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation (POPLAR). Through regular contributions to Bill of Health, as well as workshops and other projects, POPLAR affiliated researchers will share their expertise and perspectives on developments in psychedelics law and policy. We look forward to learning from and sharing their insights with our audiences. Keep an eye out for their bylines!

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BETHESDA, MD - JUNE 29, 2019: NIH NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH sign emblem seal on gateway center entrance building at NIH campus. The NIH is the US's medical research agency.

Will NIH Learn from Myriad when Settling Its mRNA Inventorship Dispute with Moderna?

Jorge Contreras 7 Comments

By Jorge L. Contreras

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is currently embroiled in a dispute over the ownership of patent rights to Moderna’s flagship mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273).

The NIH, which funded much of Moderna’s research on the COVID-19 vaccine, should be assertive in exerting control over the results of this taxpayer-funded research. Failing to do so would be a missed opportunity for the public sector to have a say in the distribution and pricing of this critical medical technology.

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Concept illustration of DNA and genes.

The Civil Rights Challenge to Gene Patenting

Jorge Contreras 1 Comment

By Jorge L. Contreras

In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) launched a unique lawsuit against Myriad Genetics, challenging fifteen claims of seven patents covering various aspects of the BRCA1/2 genes and their use in diagnosing risk for breast and ovarian cancer. In mounting this case, the ACLU assembled a coalition of lawyers, scientists, counselors, patients and advocates in an unprecedented challenge not only to one company’s patents, but the entire practice of gene patenting in America. And, against the odds, they won. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics that naturally occurring DNA sequences are not patentable, a ruling that has had repercussions throughout the scientific community and the biotechnology industry.

In The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA (New York: Hachette/Algonquin, 2021), I describe the long road that led to this unlikely Supreme Court victory. It began in 2003 when the ACLU hired its first science advisor, a Berkeley-based cellist and non-profit organizer named Tania Simoncelli. At the ACLU, Simoncelli’s job was to identify science-related issues that the ACLU could do something about, from DNA fingerprinting to functional MRI brain imaging. A couple of years into the role, Simoncelli mentioned gene patenting to Chris Hansen, a veteran ACLU litigator who had been involved in cases covering mental health to school desegregation to online porn. At first, Hansen didn’t believe her. How could a company patent something inside the human body? But Simoncelli persisted, showing him articles and statistics demonstrating that, by 2005, more than 20% of the human genome was covered by patents. The realization led to Hansen’s oft-quoted exclamation, “Who can we sue?”

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Fatty Acids, Skinny Labels: Fish Oil Patent Battle Back in Court

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Gregory Curfman

An ongoing patent battle over omega-3 fatty acids, colloquially known as as fish oils, may have broad implications for the marketing of generic drugs.

Icosapent ethyl (Vascepa®) is an omega-3 fatty acid preparation used to treat high triglycerides.  It was explicitly designed to be different from most other omega-3 fatty acid preparations — instead of containing a mixture two fatty acids (docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid), it is a purified preparation of just the latter, and it is a much higher dose than what is typically used.

On the basis of the ANCHOR and MARINE clinical trials, in 2012 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Vascepa for the treatment of persons with severe hypertriglyceridemia.

In 2015, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, a generic drug company, filed an abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) for its generic formulation of icosapent ethyl.

The manufacturer of branded Vascepa, Amarin Corporation, promptly filed a patent infringement lawsuit citing six method of use patents (the ‘728, ‘715, ‘677, ‘652, ‘560, ‘929 patents) on Vascepa that the company believed were infringed by Hikma’s ANDA.

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