In a recent order, USPTO Director John A. Squires convened the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s Appeals Review Panel (ARP) and granted sua sponte rehearing in an ex parte appeal involving obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP). The ARP will review the PTAB’s prior reversal of OTDP rejections as to claims 1-18 of Application No. 17/135,529. See
On February 6, 2026, the USPTO updated its guidance on anonymous requests for ex parte reexamination. When a patent has previously been the subject of an IPR or PGR that produced a final written decision on at least one claim, an anonymous requester must now include an affirmative statement that the real party in interest
In the evolving biosimilar landscape, patent challenges remain a critical strategy to clear the path for market entry. Recent reforms at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) under Director John Squires have significantly altered the inter partes reviews (IPRs) landscape, leading to a steep decline in institution rates. While this shift may initially appear
Introduction
On January 16, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., a patent dispute that could reshape the landscape of generic drug competition and patent enforcement.
This case centers on a contentious question: If a generic drug is labeled only for non-infringing uses (a so-called
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently issued a non-precedential Rule 36 affirmance of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in In re Adhami, No. 2024-1218, 2025 WL 1949797 (Fed.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).[1] This appeal concerned the question of when and how a single-patient study can provide sufficient
The District Court for the District of Delaware recently rejected Novartis’s effort to block MSN Pharmaceuticals from launching a generic version of Entresto® (sacubitril/valsartan), its top-selling heart failure medication. The decision, issued on July 11, 2025, potentially clears the path for generic entry before expiration of U.S. Patent No. 11,096,918 (“the ’918 patent”) on November
In a precedential ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Jazz Pharma. v. Avadel CNS Pharma., 2025 WL 1298920, — F.4th — (Fed. Cir. May 6, 2025), addressed the scope of the 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1) “safe harbor” provisions for certain clinical trials and regulatory filings. Although the case
On March 13, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a five-year patent term extension (“PTE”) for Merck’s sugammadex patent, holding that the district court had correctly calculated PTE based on the issue date of the original patent rather than the issue date of the reissued patent.[1]
Background
The case
On January 29, 2025, the Federal Circuit issued paired decisions addressing Samsung Bioepis’s (“SB”) and Formycon AG’s (“Formycon”) appeals of preliminary injunctions entered in ongoing aflibercept biosimilar litigations with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Regeneron”).[1] The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over both defendants as well as the entries of preliminary
The Federal Circuit recently reversed a District of Delaware decision that invalidated claims of Novartis’s Orange Book listed patent, U.S. Patent No. 8,101,659 (the “’659 patent”), for its blockbuster drug Entresto®, a combination drug used to treat heart failure.
Following a three-day bench trial, Judge Andrews found the ’659 patent not invalid for obviousness, lack