US Supreme Court lets stand ruling that invalidated Bayer Schering's Yasmin patent
This article was originally published in Scrip
The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from Bayer Schering Pharma, ending the innovator's effort to overturn rulings invalidating a key US patent for the oral contraceptive Yasmin (drospirenone plus ethinylestradiol). The innovator had asked the high court to reconsider a decision favouring Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' Barr unit. Barr had challenged the Bayer patent.
The high court denied the innovator's petition for a writ of certiorari in a one-line order, and as is its practice, it did not explain why it declined to take the case. The high court does not hear many patent cases.
In rejecting an appeal by Bayer Schering Pharma, the court has let stand earlier court rulings on the invalidity of the patent at issue, No 6,787,531. The US Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit had affirmed a trial judge's ruling that the '531 patent was invalid because the claimed invention, a combination that is micronised and delivered in an immediate-release tablet, was obvious (scripnews.com, 7 August 2009).