Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Janelle Waack provided comments for a Modern Healthcare article outlining the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee regarding the standard for reviewing patents, including those covering pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medical diagnostics and other healthcare technologies. The Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Circuit ruling allowing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board to use the “broadest reasonable interpretation” claim construction standard in post-grant patent disputes. As Janelle points out in the article, “[h]ealth care companies need to invest in their patent drafting and prosecution upfront, understanding if you’re challenged you’ll likely be pulled into a PTAB proceeding where the rules are tilted in favor of the challenger.”
The full article, “Supreme Court Decision a Win for Generic Drugmakers Fighting Patents,” was published by Modern Healthcare on June 20, 2016, and is available online.