In a blow to Allergan (AGN), the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed its effort to shield patents on a best-selling drug from a review board by transferring them to a Native American tribe.
The court left intact a ruling last July by a federal appeals court that upheld the ability of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board to decide whether a half-dozen patents for the Restasis eye treatment were valid. Allergan had argued that, under federal law, the sovereign status of the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe meant that the patents were immune from review by the patent board.
An Allergan spokeswoman wrote us that the company declined to comment.
About the Author Reprints
The observation that this was “an erosion” is like calling a burst dam “just a leak?”