EFF: Federal Circuit Rejects Pharmaceutical Company’s Attempt to Dodge Review of its Patents
Federal Circuit Rejects Pharmaceutical Company’s Attempt to Dodge Review of its Patents The Federal Circuit has prevented a private company from using a Native American tribe’s rights to bar the Patent Office from reviewing its patents. The case involves a pharmaceutical company, Allergan, that paid the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe to “own” its patents, and then assert sovereign immunity to avoid inter partes review (IPR). Congress created IPR proceedings to improve patent quality by giving third parties the opportunity to challenge patents at the Patent Office. Emphasizing the public interest in the nature of IPRs as proceedings before an administrative agency—the Patent Office—the appeals court found that tribal immunity could not be asserted to end these proceedings. This case began when Allergan sued a number of generic pharmaceutical companies, including Mylan, for infringing its patents related to Restasis, a treatment for symptoms of chronic dry eye. Mylan responded by filing ...