The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., has decided that Abbott Laboratories doesn’t have to pay $1.8 billion for violating a Johnson & Johnson patent when it developed its big-selling rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira. It was a record-breaking patent-infringement judgment, awarded by a jury in a Marshall, Texas, court and widely seen as friendly to patent-infringement plaintiffs. That jury determined Abbott had followed J&J’s patented antibody process to develop Humira. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, the appeals court disagreed, saying that the two companies had used different development strategies–and produced different antibodies as a result. What’s more, the court ruled that J&J’s patent claims were invalid, so they couldn’t be infringed anyway. Abbott was “pleased” with the verdict, of course. A spokeswoman told Reuters , “The evidence clearly showed that Abbott was first to invent a fully human anti-TNF antibody, Humira.” Understandably, J&J wasn’t happy. “We are disappointed by the decision,” Rob Bazemore, president of the company’s Centocor unit, said in a statement. “We are considering whether to ask for reconsideration by the panel or by the court of appeals as a whole.” – see the J&J statement – get the WSJ story – read the article from Reuters Related Articles: Abbott fights $1.67B Humira verdict in court Abbott loses $1.67B patent fight to J&J Abbott sues J&J over new Humira rival Bayer concedes on Humira, but plans appeal
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Court ditches $1.8B verdict against Abbott