Latest News & Features
Big Pharma
Several pharmaceutical organisations have joint-published a five-step plan to help provide more equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines that would avoid waiving IP rights. 25 May 2021
Europe
The University of California Berkeley has lost a CRISPR patent in Europe in the latest twist in the long-running IP saga over the gene-editing technology. 25 May 2021
Big Pharma
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to amend exclusivity laws for drugs on the US Food and Drug Administration’s orphan drugs list. 23 May 2021
Americas
Takeda subsidiary Baxalta has agreed to drop its fightback against a $173 million award in favour of Bayer after an appeals court upheld a patent infringement win for the German conglomerate. 20 May 2021
Medtech
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) will start expediting the review and issuance of ex parte appeal decisions related to COVID-19 trademarks. 20 May 2021
Big Pharma
Roche Group’s subsidiary Spark Therapeutics has filed a complaint against rival gene therapy company Bluebird Bio, accusing it of infringing its ‘Spark’ trademark. 20 May 2021
Plant Varieties
Patenting cannabinoids is an established practice in life sciences, but there are a host of other controlled substances in the field of psychoactives that companies have been rushing to patent. 18 May 2021
Biotechnology
A Novartis unit, Sandoz, has failed to persuade the US Supreme Court to review two Amgen-owned patents on the rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel (etanercept). 18 May 2021
Big Pharma
The International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property has released a position paper on the proposed COVID-19 IP waiver, claiming that it will have a negative impact on the existing frameworks for promoting international cooperation and access to vaccines. 17 May 2021
Big Pharma
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a district court jury decision that found Pacific Biosciences’ DNA sequencing patents—which it had asserted against Oxford Nanopore Technologies—were invalid. 13 May 2021