Patent May Be Held To Be Invalid - If Obtained By Fraud, False Suggestion Or Misrepresentation

Patent laws in many countries impose an onus on patent applicants to act in good faith in dealing with the patent office. For example, in Australia, a patent may be held to be invalid if it is shown that the patent was obtained by fraud, false suggestion, or misrepresentation. In the United States, applicants, inventors and their attorneys have a duty of candour, good faith, and honesty in dealings with the patent office and a patent may be held to be unenforceable if there was inequitable conduct on the part of any of those people in their dealings with the patent office.

In Australia, the full Federal Court revoked a patent directed to a specific form of Warner-Lambert's blockbuster cholesterol lowering drug, Lipitor (Ranbaxy Australia Pty Ltd v Warner-Lambert Co LLC (2008) 77 IPR 449). The court held that data included in the patent specification represented that Warner-Lambert had found that activity of the R form of the drug was about ten times that of the