PATENT WORLD; TEVA SUED, SHARES RISE

Patent World

The December 2005/January 2006 issue of Informa's Patent World has reached that IPKat, who has been perusing its pages.

Features of particular interest in this issue include

* Michael O'Shea (Akin Gump) on reverse payments in US patent infringement cases. This happens where the patent owner makes payments to a defendant in infringement proceedings and raises extremely juicy antitrust issues when the patent owner appears to paying a prospective competitor not to compete.

* Ruth Taplin (Director, Centre for Japanese and East Asian Studies) sounds forth on growth through innovation, a mantra which it is easier to chant than to implement but which is proposed as the way forward for Europe's SMEs (that's small and medium-sized enterprises: Merpel says they should be called SMSEs ...). Ruth's also gone into print on the same topic in the Thomson Newsletter here.

* Justin Lambert (Clifford Chance) writes in praise of that most American of doctrines, file wrapper estoppel, and explains how useful it can be in jurisdictions that have not adopted it.

Teva shares rise

This blog has previously noted the remarkable success of generics manufacturer Teva in patent infringement disputes. It seems now that Teva is about to be sued again, this time by Japanese company Eisai. Teva plans to make and sell a generic version of Aricept, used for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The main ingredient of Aricept is donepezil hydrochloride and Eisai has warned that it holds a US patent on the donepezil component of the drug which is valid until 25 November 2010 which it promises to enforce rigorously. Investor response was predictable, if irrational - Teva's share price just continues to rise.

The IPKat wonders whether Teva's luck will continue to last. The company appears to have a great knack for dodging the raindrops and assumes that it must have an extremely deep appreciation of the way the patent system works.

Follow Teva's share price here
Another Teva here