Blog 28: Silly Patent: Allergan Suing Sandoz for Patent Infringement

Allergan is suing Sandoz for marketing a generic version of their patented drug COMBIGAN, which is a combination ophthalmic drug treatment. Sandoz went to the FTC trying and their major claim is 463, which is proving Alergan’s patent of COMBIGAN is not obvious. However this is silly, because it has the same chemicals and functions. The only significance part was the 4^th

part of claim 463 which shows that Sandoz  is a different drug because it changes the amount of time for the drug to kick in. For a drug this is not enough to make it different, because all a manufacture needs to do is make one more or less dissoluble for the body. Sandoz still lost this claim and is not allowed to patent or market this new drug until 2022, when Allergan’s patent expires.

http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2013/05/allergan-v-sandoz-the-thin-line-of-nonobviousness.html