Canada's Supreme Court Tosses Viagra Patent For Vagueness 100
Freshly Exhumed writes "In a 7-to-0 decision, the Supreme Court Of Canada has ruled that Pfizer Canada Inc.'s patent on well-known erectile dysfunction remedy Viagra is now invalid due to insufficient information in Pfizer's patent application. The upshot is that competitors can now manufacture cheaper, generic versions of Viagra for sale in Canada."
Generics and Legal Challenges (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Insufficient information (Score:5, Informative)
So the Supreme Court Of Canada found the patent hard to understand.
You can believe that if it makes you feel good, but reality says otherwise, that the patent was purposefully obfuscated:
So, no one could "understand" it because they didn't disclose proper information - enough for someone skilled in the profession to create a copy of the drug.
It's a remarkably sensible decision and one that should be applied in US courts - particularly in the current mobile patent war (the part about not being allowed to "game the system").
Re:Generics and Legal Challenges (Score:5, Informative)
However, the Canadian court found that Pfizer had failed to essentially zero in on sildenafil with their claims. When it came down to actually stating that this molecule is the one that lab studies have found treats ED, Pfizer only ever mentions the core skeleton (known as "formula I") and never uniquely identifies sildenafil. It mentions sildenafil (not even by name, only by its R groups) in one claim, but never connects it and only it to ED. The court judgement notes that "formula I" represents 260 quintillion possible compounds, and therefore rejected the patent for vagueness.
Re:Insufficient information (Score:4, Informative)
The court ruled that the patent never concretely established this relationship:
Re:Maybe they require photos? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Generics and Legal Challenges (Score:4, Informative)
For that matter, Viagra itself is also sold in a different dose as Revatio for pulmonary hypertension- I'm pretty sure that Pfizer's "treatment of erectile dysfunction" patent expiring in 2019 does not apply to that product. I will note that these "use patents" are much more likely to be invalidated in court challenges compared to the "composition of matter" patent (it was considered surprising by many observers when Pfizer won their case with Teva in the US last year), but they are out there.