Biogen Urges Justices to Protect Patents on Biologic Medicines

A Federal Circuit ruling reinstating a jury verdict that invalidated Biogen Inc.‘s biologic patent “threatens innovation where it is needed most,” the company told the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for review.

Biogen’s patent uses recombinant—or artificially formed—DNA to make a protein that slows the effects of multiple sclerosis. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with alleged infringer Merck KGaA subsidiary EMD Serono that the patent was anticipated by two references teaching the use of native DNA for the same treatment.

Biogen told the Supreme Court in its petition for review that the ruling ...