Good Patent News Everyone

For once, the generic drug manufacturers win one:

The US Supreme Court ruled that generic drug makers can challenge big-name pharmaceutical firms in court to stop them from broadening the scope of their patent descriptions.

The measure overturns a 2010 appeals court ruling and confirms an earlier decision by a federal judge that ordered the US subsidiary of Danish laboratory Novo Nordisk to narrow the description of its patent on repaglinide, an anti-diabetes drug sold under the name Prandin.

Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, the US subsidiary of the Indian firm Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, is seeking to produce a generic version of Prandin.

However Novo Nordisk amended the wording of his patent to extend it, and block the Caraco’s request to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to produce a generic version of the drug.

The FDA cannot approve the sale of a drug that breaks patent protection laws.

In a unanimous decision by the nine Supreme Court justices on Tuesday, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that “a generic company can employ the counterclaim to challenge a brand’s overbrand use code.”

Courts have gotten much more skeptical of what I call overbroad patent bullsh%$ over the years, so this is more of  a good trend.