Federal Circuit asked to revamp inequitable conduct standard
05 August 2010
Eileen McDermott, New York
Pharmaceutical and technology companies have urged the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to raise the threshold for proving inequitable conduct in patent cases
Drug maker Eisai, Verizon Communications, the IP Owners Association (IPO) and the International Bar Association (ABA) have all filed amicus briefs in the case of Therasense v Becton Dickinson, which the CAFC agreed to hear en banc in April this year
Last year, the Federal Circuit reined in the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s standard for proving fraud committed during trade mark prosecution with its decision in In re Bose.
Now, IP owners have asked for a similar ruling over accusations of inequitable conduct in patent litigation.
In Therasense, the district court found that Therasense (now Abbott Laboratories) had failed to disclose statements made to the EPO in prosecuting its US patent number 5,820,551 and was guilty of inequitable conduct. The Federal Circuit affirmed that decision in January this year.
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