Supreme Court To Determine Antitrust Standards For Reverse Payment Settlements

In a late breaking but widely expected development, the Supreme Court of the United States granted the request of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to review a decision of the Eleventh Circuit in Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ¹ The defendants acquiesced in the FTC's request for Supreme Court review.

The case involves the Eleventh Circuit's decision to affirm a district court order dismissing the FTC's complaint alleging that a "reverse payment settlement" violated the antitrust laws. A reverse payment settlement involves the settlement of patent litigation brought under the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act, Pub. L. No. 98-417, 98 Stat. 1585 (commonly known as the Hatch-Waxman Act) in which the patent holder and brand-name drug manufacturer agrees to resolve its patent lawsuit against the manufacturer of a generic drug by paying the generic drug manufacturer a specified sum and the generic drug manufacturer agreeing