5 Key Takeaways | Rolling with the Legal Punches: Resetting Patent Strategy to Address Changes in the Law
Verdict in T-Cell Immunotherapy IP Case Tests 'Reasonable Royalty' Concept for Large Damage Awards
On August 20, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (court) found inequitable conduct when Applicant, Lindis Biotech, GMBH (Lindis), relied on data from hastily performed experiments to obtain a patent...more
Nature of the Case and Issue(s) Presented: Myrbetriq is a drug used to treat overactive bladder. It utilizes a hydrogel-based sustained-release oral tablet formulation to control the rate at which the active ingredient,...more
On July 16 2025, the Court of Appeal dismissed AstraZeneca’s appeal and upheld the first instance decision, finding that AstraZeneca’s compound patent for dapagliflozin, an SGLT2 inhibitor used to treat diabetes, was invalid...more
Nature of the Case and Issue(s) Presented: Astellas sued Lupin and Zydus based on the generics manufacturers’ ANDA filing and their efforts to make and sell generic mirabegron. In the leadup to the 2023 bench trial, the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued a non-precedential Rule 36 affirmance of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in In re Adhami, No. 2024-1218, 2025 WL 1949797 (Fed. Cir. July 16, 2025)....more
It is well established that an enantiomerically pure compound exhibiting advantageous properties not present in its isomer or its corresponding racemic mixture, can be patented even if its corresponding racemic mixtures are...more
Patent claims reciting compounds where at least one group of a compound genus is defined by its function are common. For example, familiar claim terms such as “chelating moiety,” “linker,” and “binding moiety” describe a...more
On March 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the case of In Re: Xencor, Inc. In this Appeal from the Appeals Review Panel of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (ARP), with regard to...more
Entresto® (valsartan/sacubitril) - Case Name: In re Entresto, 125 F.4th 1090 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 10, 2025) (Circuit Judges Lourie, Prost, and Reyna presiding; Opinion by Lourie, C.J.) (Appeal from D. Del., Andrews, J.) Drug...more
In the landmark Amgen v. Sanofi case (previously covered here), the Supreme Court affirmed that patent claims drawn to a genus of monoclonal antibodies, which were claimed in terms of their function and the epitope to which...more
Current written description jurisprudence can make it difficult to obtain broad antibody patents, leading practitioners to explore alternative claiming strategies in an effort to bypass the limited scope afforded under the...more
In In re: Xencor, Inc., the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit confirmed that the limiting preamble of a Jepson claim must be supported by the specification with “sufficient written description.” In its decision, the...more
The Federal Circuit recently reversed a district court decision that found a patent that did not describe after-arising technology failed to satisfy the written description requirement. In so doing, the Federal Circuit...more
Addressing a preliminary injunction in patent litigation related to the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA), the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the district court’s grant of a...more
On January 29, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia’s entries of preliminary injunction preventing Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd....more
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Appeal Nos. 2024-1965, -1966, -2082, -2083 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 29, 2025) Our Case of the Week is a 31-page decision that touches on a variety of issues, including...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court’s ruling of invalidity for lack of written description, finding that the district court erred in its analysis of written description because patents...more
Before Lourie, Prost, and Reyna. Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. Summary: A patent was not invalid for lack of written description for failing to describe the specific infringing embodiment...more
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Torrent Pharma Inc., et al., Nos. 2023-2218, -2220, -2221 (Fed. Cir. (D. Del.) Jan. 10, 2025). Opinion by Lourie, joined by Prost and Reyna. The FDA approved a New Drug Application from...more
In re Entresto (Sacubitril/Valsartan), Appeal Nos. 2023-2218, -2220, -2221 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 10, 2025) In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit revived Novartis’s US Patent No. 8,101,659 by reversing the district...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) recently invalidated a University of Massachusetts (“UMass”) patent related to the treatment of the skin disease vitiligo in a post-grant review. (See Forte Biosciences Inc v....more
We are excited to announce Venable’s inaugural Life Sciences Webinar Series. This month-long series will explore the intricacies and latest developments that shape the life sciences industry. Join us as we hear from our...more
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court has affirmed the lower court’s ruling that Amgen’s broad genus claims to cholesterol-lowering antibodies are invalid for lack of enablement....more
Biologics have become the fastest-growing class of therapeutic compounds. They have provided innovative treatment alternatives for people who suffer from some of the most serious medical conditions known to man. The...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi (referred to as the Amgen decision) likely makes it more difficult for life sciences companies to obtain broad patents claiming an entire genus of antibodies...more