Following a bench trial the court found that plaintiffs' patent was not invalid as obvious based in part on secondary considerations of nonobviousness. "The evidence demonstrates that there was much skepticism in the industry concerning the safety of rosuvastatin, and the Court finds it telling that no other pharmaceutical companies attempted to create a comparable product despite research in the area and economic incentives of entering an additional player in the statin market." The court also determined that plaintiffs' patent was not unenforeceable for inequitable conduct. "[T]he evidence produced by Plaintiffs collectively suggests a time of confusion, personnel change, and overwork in the [plaintiff's] Patent Department such that it would not be unreasonable to infer from this 40 day period that the [Eurpoean Search Report] had merely been caught in a stack of papers."
AstraZeneca Pharm. LP et al v. Aurobindo Pharma Ltd. et al., 1-07-cv-00810 (DED June 29, 2010, Memorandum Opinion) (Farnan, J.)
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