The Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued a final written decision in an inter partes review (IPR) filed by Venable on behalf of its client Novartis. In its decision, the Board found all challenged claims of U.S. Patent No. 10,633,344 unpatentable, agreeing with Novartis that the claims lacked written description support as of the patent’s 2002 and 2003 priority dates and were anticipated as of the patent’s 2014 remaining priority date. A prior IPR involving a different claim of the same patent was terminated in Novartis’s favor after the sole challenged claim was dedicated to the public by the patent owners.
Novartis filed these IPRs after being sued in the Northern District of California for infringement of the ’344 patent based on sales of its blockbuster heart failure product, Entresto®. That litigation was stayed pending the outcome of the IPRs.
Novartis was represented by Venable attorneys Christina Schwarz, Nicholas Kallas, Laura Fishwick, Alex McJoynt, Erin Belfield, Carrie Park, and Susanne Flanders, and by Jessica Borriello.