Orders Staying Parallel Litigation Subject To Immediate Appeal

Addressing the issue of whether an order barring parallel litigation is an injunction subject to immediate appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit applied its own standard and held that injunctions arbitrating between a co-pending patent declaratory judgment action and an infringement case, each pending before a different district court, will be reviewed under the law of the Federal Circuit. Lab. Corp. of Am. Holdings v. Chiron Corp., Case No. 03-1572 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 30, 2004) (Linn, R.).

Chiron owns several U.S. patents related to detecting the Hepatitis C virus in human blood and blood products. LabCorp supplies testing products that detect the presence and quantity of the Hepatitis C virus and performs such tests at its facility. Chiron threatened a lawsuit against LabCorp, and in response LabCorp entered into a standstill agreement with Chiron. Six months later, the standstill agreement expired but the parties had still not reached an agreement. LabCorp