A weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions
issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the
opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial
and Appeal Board.
Belcher Pharmaceuticals, LLC v. Hospira,
Inc., No. 2020-1799 (Fed. Cir. (D. Del.) Sept. 1,
2021). Opinion by Reyna, joined by Taranto and Stoll.
Belcher sued Hospira for infringement of a patent covering a
particular formulation of 1-epinephrine having a pH between 2.8 and
3.3. The district court ruled that Belcher's patent is
unenforceable for inequitable conduct.
Belcher's Chief Science Officer, Darren Rubin, was involved
in prosecution of the patent as well as regulatory approval from
the FDA. During trial, Mr. Rubin admitted that he possessed (but
did not disclose to the PTO) a label for an epinephrine product
introduced to the market by JHP that had a pH in the range of 2.2
to 5.0. The district court concluded that JHP's epinephrine
product (among
