Drug case will test rules on innovation

Merck KGaA, the German drug company, is asking the court to allow it to use the patents of tiny Integra LifeSciences, a medical technology company, to look for drugs that could help fight cancer, reports the Financial Times. A 20-year-old federal law says Merck can use the material free as long as the use is ‘reasonably related’ to getting a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But the court will have to decide whether the right to infringe patents should stretch back to the earliest explorations or just to the final phase of clinical testing. A federal jury has already sided with Integra and awarded $15m in damages against Merck. A Federal Appeals Court agreed. Big drug companies have warned that if the ruling is again upheld patients will be deprived of timely access to new, safer and more effective drugs. Full report in the Financial Times

In another patent ruling, the European Patent Office has handed down a ruling partially in favour of US company Monsanto over its long-disputed European patent relating to the production of herbicide-tolerant plants. Monsanto was granted the European patent on June 19 1996. The patent covers methods for producing genetically modified plants that would remain unaffected by a specific herbicide. The crop plants include corn, flax, rice, soybean and wheat. But following opposition in the nine months after the grant, the EPO’s Opposition Division decided to limit the original version of the patent. Greenpeace and Syngenta appealed this ruling on different grounds in 2001, including claims that plant varieties were excluded from patentability. After a recent public hearing, the Board of Appeal decided to maintain the patent in limited form. Full report in the Legal Media Group