On May 1, 2019, Law360 covered Venable's win before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on behalf of its client, Grünenthal GmBH, in a post-grant review of Antecip Bioventures II LLC's patent covering a drug used to treat bone pain and other problems. The PTAB invalidated Antecip's patent on April 29, 2019.
According to the article, Grünenthal challenged the patent at the PTAB in October 2017, alleging that the claims were too broad and that "the specification simply fails to enable their full scope," among other things. In May 2018, the PTAB launched the post-grant review, finding that Grünenthal had shown that it was "more likely than not" that at least one claim in the patent was unpatentable.
April 29, 2019, the PTAB found that the challenged claims in Antecip's patent were invalid for not enabling the claimed methods of treatment, saying the specification isn't detailed enough for a person of ordinary skill in the art to arrive at the claimed dosage forms of zoledronic acid, which is used to treat problems related to "bone, cancer and/or pain," with a specific bioavailability, or the rate at which it's absorbed by the body, using the patent specification.
Grünenthal was represented by Bill Solander, Dan Minion, Stephen Yam, Jim Tyminski, Bruce Haas, and Katherine Adams.