The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, overturned a lower court decision and ruled in favour of Eli Lilly and Company in the case of Ariad Pharmaceuticals et al. v. Eli Lilly and Company. An earlier jury decision in the US District Court of Massachusetts, and a subsequent bench trial ruling, had deemed that a patent owned by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute, and licensed to Ariad, was valid and infringed by Lilly's sales of Evista and Xigris. This ruling by the Court of Appeals overturned that prior decision, concluding that Ariad's patent claims are invalid for failing to meet the written description requirement.
"We are pleased with the ruling from the Court of Appeals and believe that the Court fairly applied long-standing patent law principles," said Robert A Armitage, senior vice president and general counsel for Lilly. "Over many years the Court's rulings have provided effective protection for biotechnology inventions while rejecting attempts at claims extending beyond the inventor's work."