Genzyme Corporation
is a company based in Cambridge Massachusetts, and Genentech (which many of you
probably have heard about) is headquartered right here in the bay area in South
San Francisco. These two companies filed lawsuits against each other over a
clot-breaking agent for heart attack patients.
Genzyme had a 1994
patent for a chemical produced through genetic engineering of DNA. The company
claimed that Genentech's TNKase "clot-busting" product infringed this
patent. This dispute was mainly focused
on "whether payments were due under a license Genzyme had granted to
Genentech" according to William Marsden Jr., the Genzyme lawyer.
Genentech then sued
back in 2001, asserting that the technology they use is different, hoping that
the court would rule that the patent didn't cover the product or that the
patent was invalid.
Here is another similar case with a different drug (t-PA) that I found even more interesting: Toboyo is a four
billion dollar textile and pharmaceutical maker, which is involved in making
the t-PA drug, under license from Genzyme. In late 1991, Osaka District court
bailiffs decided to confiscate the drug at the Toyobo plant in Japan, because
Toyobo's sale infringed Genentech's Japanese patent. What I find extremely
interesting about this case, especially from a patent's perspective, is that
"Royalties from the drug's sales in Japan were not expected to make major
contributions to revenues at either Genentech or Genzyme, but the case was
called significant because of its implications for patents in Japan…[for] the
case was the first seizure of a product by Japanese authorities to protect a
biotechnology patent". G Kirk Raab,
the Chief executive of Genentech, said that "It's a strong affirmation on
the part of Japan's judicial system. It says to the biotech industry that
strong patents will be supported by Japanese courts". Unfortunately, this
decision was bad news for Toboyo, because t-PA was one of Toboyo's first major
pharmaceutical and the company had invested in establishing production
processes and marketing scheme for t-PA.
We've been talking so much about smartphones it's interesting to see what other patent lawsuits are out there. Sometimes I wonder if these patents are actually more hurtful to society than helpful. If there are two ways to help break down clots for heart attack patients, wouldn't it be better to have many versions of the product, regardless of the patent? I mean, what if a patent troll got a hold of this and prevented anyone from manufacturing the product? That would be really bad. Another note of interest is the fact that some lawsuits are significant not because of how it will affect the market but how if affects the patent system in a country. I hope the people involved in that case thought carefully about what they were doing.
ReplyDeleteI think it's fascinating that the Japanese executive branch did not overrule the judicial system when the Japanese manufacturer was found guilty of infringing on the American biotech company's patents. The American executive branch immediately overruled the American courts when they determined that Apple had violated a few Samsung patents and would need to cease selling iPhones in the United States. Perhaps the reason the Japanese executed the judicial orders and the Americans overruled theirs is because the stakes were much higher in the Apple/Samsung case than the one discussed in this blog post.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy! Well, I wouldn't say that there are only two ways to break down clots for heart attack patients. I'm sure there are many different ways. But it is true-- for large discoveries, I can definitely see this being a problem. For example, if somebody discovered a chemical mechanism that worked really well and patented it, other companies would need to license that to use it in their technology. Thus, the patent system encourages inventors to "invent big". Also, I think Jega brought up a good point. When you compare these types of patents, it is important to notice how the stakes are much higher-- it is a concern of life versus death.
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