Petition Relies on Dissent in Sun to Dispute Federal Circuit's Double-Patenting Doctrine

摘要

On Jan. 28, a petition for a writ of certiorari was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in Eli Lilly & Co. v. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (U.S., No. 10-972, review sought 1/28/11), appealing the Federal Circuit's ruling that Lilly's method-of-use patent on the active ingredient in the cancer treatment drug Gemzar was invalid for obviousness-type double patenting. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 611 F.3d 1381, 95 USPQ2d 1797 (80 PTCJ 480, 8/6/10). A dissent to the appeals court's denial of a petition for en banc rehearing argued that the court's double-patenting doctrine had become distorted, and that the panel opinion was in violation of precedent and resulted in the hampering of the patentability of "important later-discovered uses" of a drug. No. 2010-1105 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 1, 2010) (81 PTCJ 16, 11/5/10).