Obviousness Inquiry For Ocular Patents Not Mis-Framed

InSite Vision Inc. et.al v. Sandoz, Inc., (Fed. Cir. April 9, 2015)

Affirming the finding by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey that defendant failed to prove Plaintiffs' patents directed to methods of treating ocular infections with azithromycin are invalid, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined Sandoz Inc. did not show by clear and convincing evidence that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use azithromycin to topically treat ocular infections. The court also upheld the district court's refusal to admit into evidence a late-proffered file history of a European counterpart patent. InSite Vision Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 783 F.3d 853 (Fed. Cir. April 9, 2015) (J. Linn).