United States Federal Circuit

In this patent infringement action, defendants appeal from a final judgment entered against them in which the district court awarded damages to plaintiffs on a reasonable royalty theory of recovery. The two patents at issue in this case are plaintiffs' ‘505 and ‘230 patents, which relate to pharmaceutical formulations containing omeprazole, the active ingredient in plaintiffs' highly successful prescription drug, Prilosec. The judgment is affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded, where: 1) the district court did not err in concluding that the 50 percent royalty rate constituted fair compensation to plaintiffs under the reasonable royalty theory of damages, as that was the number arrived at in the settlement agreement and offer, and licenses negotiated to settle a case after a court has established validity and infringement of the patent are ver probative of reasonable royalty; and 2) 35 U.S.C. section 284 fails to support plaintiffs' claim for royalty payments on defendants' post-expiration generic omeprazole sales, so the portion of the district court's damages award relating to the pediatric exclusivity period is reversed and remanded for recalculation.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/07/2015
• Published 04/07/2015

Judges

Court

• United States Federal Circuit

Counsel