Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks -- 2017



In re Wellbutrin XL Antitrust Litigation   (3rd Circuit)

Antitrust scrutiny of patent litigation settlements

The NAM filed an amicus brief in a patent litigation matter urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to support flexible settlement agreements, which avoid costly and complex litigation. The plaintiffs alleged that a proposed patent litigation settlement agreement was anticompetitive under the antitrust laws. The development of legal rules that enable parties to efficiently resolve disputes and avoid lengthy litigation that delays a product’s entry into the consumer market is important for manufacturers. The NAM’s brief argued that courts should encourage flexibility in settlement terms and that agreements by the brand manufacturer not to compete with the authorized generic manufacturer, for a limited time, is akin to a routine patent license and therefore not anticompetitive. In a win for manufacturers, the Third Circuit held that the plaintiffs failed to show that they had an “antitrust injury” because they could not prove that their injuries were caused by the settlement agreement.