U.S. Appeals Court Issues Ruling in Support of Lilly in Ariad Patent Litigation

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. today overturned a lower court decision and ruled in favor of Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY) in the case of Ariad Pharmaceuticals et al. v. Eli Lilly and Company. An earlier jury decision in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, and a subsequent bench trial ruling, had deemed that a patent owned by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute, and licensed to Ariad, was valid and infringed by Lilly's sales of Evista(R) and Xigris(R). Today's ruling by the Court of Appeals overturned that prior decision, concluding that Ariad's patent claims are invalid for failing to meet the written description requirement.

The details can be read here.

The whole judgement can be read here.