Federal Circuit Upholds PTAB Decisions in Favor of Eli Lilly

April 2019

On April 26th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld three Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decisions in favor of Williams & Connolly client Eli Lilly & Company in which the firm defeated three petitions for inter partes review challenging the validity of a patent protecting Lilly’s blockbuster anti-cancer drug Alimta®.  In issuing its decisions in Lilly’s favor, the PTAB found that Neptune Generics, Fresenius Kabi USA, and Mylan Laboratories had not shown any of the claims of Lilly’s patent to be unpatentable.  The Federal Circuit affirmed these rulings, finding no error in the Board’s legal analysis and holding that substantial evidence supported the patentability of the claims at issue.   

The Williams & Connolly team included Adam L. Perlman, Dov P. Grossman, David M. Krinsky, Galina I. Fomenkova, Luke McCloud and Andrew P. Lemens.

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