DLA Piper won a significant appellate victory this week in its representation of SteadyMed Ltd., a specialty pharmaceutical company, before the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. On November 14th 2017, the Court affirmed the March 31st 2017 ruling by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, invalidating all patent claims in United Therapeutics' key patent covering its products Remodulin, Tyvaso, and Orenitram. The case was unusual in that the Board and Federal Circuit relied on some of the same prior art that had been submitted to the examiner during the patent's original prosecution, although the examiner had not commented on some of this prior art, and was unaware of the arguments raised by SteadyMed. The Federal Circuit affirmed without opinion the Board's finding that the claims in United Therapeutics' patent were both anticipated and obvious on multiple grounds.
The DLA Piper team representing SteadyMed was led by partner Stuart Pollack (New York), and included partners Stan Panikowski, Lisa Haile (both of San Diego), associate Stephanie Chichetti (New York), and paralegal Alice Lineberry (Austin).
(Source: DLA Piper)
