By Suresh Pillai —

MIT Dismissed as Party in RNAi Dispute

The U.S. District Court for the District
of Massachusetts has granted the joint motion filed by plaintiff the Max Planck
Institute and defendant the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to dismiss MIT as a party in a patent suit brought by Max Planck.  The
focus of the lawsuit is various licensing agreements covering RNA
interference technologies.  The
central dispute in the lawsuit concerns whether defendants the Whitehead
Institute for Biomedical Research,
MIT, and the University of Massachusetts
improperly claimed aspects of inventions first created by Max Planck
researchers (see "Court Report," July 5, 2009, and "Biotech/Pharma
Docket," February 17, 2010).

The most recent filing in the case provides for the dismissal
of MIT as a defendant in the case.  In exchange, MIT has agreed to be bound by any judgment entered against
the other defendants.  Read MIT's motion here.

Novartis Prevails over Pfizer in ReFacto® Suit

The U.S. District Court for the District
of Delaware has ruled that there is no interference-in-fact between the patent claims of two Novartis patents covering
truncated Factor VIII variants, biomolecules useful in the treatment of
hemophilia, and the claims of a patent owned by Genetics
Institute LLC, a Pfizer Inc. unit.  The Genetics Institute
originally filed suit in May 2008 alleging that the claims of two Novartis
patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,060,447 and
6,228,620,
were anticipated by a Genetics Institute patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,868,112.  The District Court, however, ruled that the
claims of the '447 and '620 patents were not anticipated by the '112
patent.  Although the Court
reasoned that all three patents were directed to the same subject matter, the Court concluded that there was a lack of homology regarding the amino acid
deletion ranges cited between the '112 and '620 patents.  This lack of overlap also prevented the
claims of the '447 patent from being obvious in light of the '112 patent.

Read the District Court's opinion here.

Cordis Awarded Fees and Costs in Surgical Device
Suit

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District
of Illinois granted defendant Cordis Corp.,
a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, its motion to have the case declared exceptional
for the purpose of receiving compensation for attorneys' fees and
expenses.  Plaintiff MarcTec LLC
originally filed suit in 2007, alleging that Cordis' Cypher blood vessel stent
infringed U.S. Patent Nos. 7,128,753 and 7,217,290,
both of which are owned by MarcTec.  Cordis counterclaimed that the patents-in-suit were invalid.  In an earlier ruling, the District Court granted
summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Cordis and dismissed the
counterclaims without prejudice.

In this most recent ruling, the Court concluded
that MarcTec, in pursuing the suit after learning that Cordis' inventions did
not infringe the main claim at issue, established its case by depending
upon mischaracterization of the Court's claim construction and the use of
unreliable expert testimony.  Read the District Court's opinion here.