[Ip-health] NYTimes: Court Upholds Patent on Plavix

[chan park]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
the full text of the decision can be found at:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/20070619_bristol.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/business/19cnd-bristol.html?_r=3D1&hp&ore=
f=3Dslogin

A federal judge in Manhattan today upheld the patent on the anticlotting dr=
ug Plavix, good news for the companies that co-market the blockbuster produ=
ct, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis.
The ruling by Judge Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Court was not unexp=
ected. He had signaled last fall that he tilted toward upholding the patent=
, which is not scheduled to expire until 2011.
Shares in both companies, however, were up sharply today on the news. Brist=
ol=92s stock was up nearly 5 percent in New York, and Sanofi-Aventis was up=
 as much as 2.2 percent in Paris
In addition to upholding the Plavix patent, Judge Stein permanently prohibi=
ted the generic manufacturing company Apotex from selling additional suppli=
es of its version of the drug, called clopidogrel bisulphate.
Judge Stein also said he would schedule a hearing to establish damages to b=
e paid by Apotex, which flooded the market with more than $1 billion of its=
 product last fall, drastically cutting into earnings of both Bristol and S=
anofi-Aventis. Bristol alone had collected more than $3 billion in Plavix r=
evenue in 2005, making the drug the company=92s largest product.
While good news for the brand-name manufacturers, the ruling was bitterswee=
t. Bristol-Myers and Sanofi-Aventis, based in France, had been intent on se=
ttling the patent dispute last year, so much so that they negotiated away t=
he right to collect triple damages from Apotex. That will reduce the ultima=
te amount of any damages.
Apotex, which is based in Toronto, vowed to appeal the decision. In a state=
ment today, the company=92s chief executive, Bernard C. Sherman, said he th=
ought the patent would ultimately be held invalid.
Apotex had argued that the drug clopidogrel bisulphate, a salt, was an obvi=
ous variation on another older patent held by Sanofi-Aventis. The question =
of whether scientific discoveries should be obvious to scientists is an iss=
ue in patent cases.
But Judge Stein ruled that =93Sanofi has effectively rebutted a prima facie=
 case of obviousness by demonstrating that clopidogrel bisulfate =97 as a w=
hole =97 possesses unexpected properties that could not have reasonably bee=
n viewed as a likely outcome of preparing the invention.=94



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