Covid-Shot Patent Ruling Emerges from ‘Nonsensical Wonderland’

Whether Pfizer Inc.’s Comirnaty vaccines infringe an Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. patent will come down to whether Alnylam can prove the Covid-19 shots are, in fact, vaccines, according to a federal judge’s ruling heavily referencing the animated 1951 film “Alice in Wonderland.”

Judge Colm F. Connolly determined the term “vaccine” is a limitation, or an essential part, of two claims in US Patent No. 11,590,229, one of six patents Alnylam alleges Pfizer and BioNTech SE’s Comirnaty shots infringe, according to an opinion issued Friday in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.

Connolly, the district’s chief judge, construed ...